Full Circle

Quite why I came top of the poll to write the 100th post for The Pike Pool is a bit of a mystery as I don't do anywhere near as much piking as most Pikers Pit members do these days. Which is as good a reason to make it a bit of a look back over the ups and downs of 30 odd years of piking. Hopefully without the rose tinted spectacles!

In some respects my attitude to piking is exactly the same now as it was when I started piking in earnest back in 1982. I just want to catch pike, first and foremost, and if I can manage to land a few doubles each season I'm a happy chappy. I've never had any ambitions to catch more or bigger pike than anyone else (which is just as well given the piking partners I've had over the years...). In the early days I obviously wanted to increase my personal best pike, but the thought of catching a thirty was nowhere in my head. Such fish were very thin on the ground and unheard of from local waters. Even a twenty was extremely unlikely from anywhere within ten miles of home.

That's not to say that pictures of thirty pound pike weren't motivating. Photos of Peter Hancock's record and Clive Loveland's 39 are still iconic in my eyes. Perhaps even more motivating, because a more recent capture (and in colour in the Abu Tight Lines catalogue) was the fish Slim Baxter caught from Lomond. There was another photo that graced the cover of Coarse Angler stuck in my mind, not least because I actually knew the angler in question - Rob Forshaw's Lomond 31.

Even so a thirty was beyond most local piker's dreams because catching one involved a lot of travelling to even be in with a chance of fishing a water containing them. Twenties weren't much more of a hope. All the local pikers I knew who had caught a twenty had them from either Scotland or the Fens. For a bloke with just a push bike and occasional lifts to go fishing the best I could hope for was to catch the biggest pike in the waters I had access to. The drains hadn't produced a 20 in recent years, and by all accounts doubles were hard to come by on the canal.

Icons

Despite the low ceiling weights for pike on these waters a pike is a pike and I managed to learn a fair bit that I have put to use on 'better' waters since. One thing that you do learn is to work for your fish. If you start piking (or fishing for any species for that matter) on a prolific water with a high average size of fish you can become complacent and imagine that all you have to do anywhere is rock up and chuck the baits out. It's one reason travelling anglers can outfish the locals when a water gets known about. They are used to trying a little bit harder.

It didn't take long before I started travelling for my piking when I teamed up with Pete Hesketh. He'd' fished a loch on the off chance when he was on holiday and caught doubles without really trying. As an example of the quality of our local fishing Pete fished an entire season (June to March) for something like ninety pike, ten of them being doubles. That included early sessions before work as well as weekends. It's grim up north.

When you start fishing further afield you begin to bump into pikers from other parts of the country. Sometimes you hit it off with them and they give you tip-offs about waters they fish or have fished. After having a few red letter days, by our standards, in Scotland catching more than one double in a day, and me catching my first twenty - which wasn't what we were targeting - we moved on to one of those waters we'd been told about for the winter. The fishing was slower, but we kept on catching doubles. This time Pete got a twenty. We were becoming accustomed to this sort of fishing as the new norm for us. Instead of hoping for a double every time we fished we were expecting them. Our hopes were now of twenties.

More waters came to our attention and we found ourselves on that grapevine we'd heard so much about. So began the years of travelling. Early starts, long drives, weekend sessions and longer bivvying up or sleeping in cars and vans. Doubles were reasonably relatively plentiful, but twenties were still the exception. I never was lucky. In the years Pete and I fished together we both caught the same number of pike over nineteen pounds. Pete caught twice as many twenties as me though. The netting skills I learned in those years came in handy when I started fishing with a certain Yorkshire Pudding.

When Esthwaite got widely known about it was pretty much out of my league as far as price went. I had to listen to my mates talking about all the twenties they were catching. That is the biggest downside to trout water piking. The expense limits who can have a crack at the fish. Just as anywhere, the more time you put in the more you will catch and, therefore, the better your chances of a monster. Esthwaite was the first water I knew of, that was reasonably local, to produce numbers of thirties.

Despite being able to afford only an occasional session I still fished Essy hoping for a twenty. My PB was slowly creeping upwards, literally by the ounce, after catching my Scottish 22 pounder. I managed enough high doubles to keep me satisfied. If you're catching fifteen-plussers on a regular basis where a twenty is a big fish you're doing all it takes to catch twenties. All I needed was a bit of luck. That bit of luck came along when Geoff Parkinson anchored up where I wanted to troll my livebaits forcing me out from the bank and the right hand float sank from sight.

Catching what was at the time one of the top fifty pike of all time (although that was the year the List Master General didn't publish the top 50 list...) was a strange thing to happen. I never thought I'd catch a 30. I never really hoped to catch one. But I had. For some reason after that fish twenties started to fall to my rods more frequently than nineteens. I wonder if the weight of the big one stretched the spring in my scales?

A scattering of memories

Once more chance encounters lead to a change of fishing partner and pastures new. Nige Grassby invited me to fish with him and a whole new experience was had. Numbers of doubles in a day, and all falling for lures. That sort of fishing can spoil you for the kind of piking to be had back home. As this lure fishing coincided with making more contacts and starting to travel to more southerly trout waters so the fishing, and expectations, changed. When the 'lure boom' hit the trout waters the fishing was remarkable.

Previous trout water sessions with deadbaits and 'old school' lures had been more like playing the lottery than fishing. You hoped something would be stupid enough to take your bait or lure, but didn't really believe anything would. The expectation was to blank, although Llandegfedd herrings made a difference for some. Unfortunately my herrings were the other sort. Now I felt like I was fishing for twenties. I caught a few too. I even managed one on a mackerel! This was when my netting skills proved invaluable and in one season I slipped the net under four thirties for Mr Grassby. It was almost like we were expecting to catch thirties.

Nothing lasts for ever in the piking world and it didn't take long before the edge some of us had with the lures and techniques we were using wore off. Victims of our own success, I suppose, as lure tactics got publicised and the lures became widely available. It was as much a case of getting on the spots before anyone else if you wanted to keep the catch rates up. Menteith was a bit different. You still needed to be on the spots, but the pike would take deadbaits. Unusual for trout water pike. After all those years of chucking lures all day sitting watching a couple of floats and expecting to catch made a pleasant change.

Nonetheless, around 2004 I was starting to get tired of all the travelling. Trout water fishing was getting more competitive as more and more people knew where 'the spots' were and had the means to make the most of them. Other waters I was fishing were going off the boil. Angling pressure had taken its toll on some, as had aquatic predators and possibly humans with a taste for fish. After all those years I couldn't face fishing locally on waters where you either had to face a lengthy run of blanks before a fish turned up (either a jack or a twenty on one water), or the prospect was a load of jacks with an occasional double. That was when I turned to barbel after the tench had spawned. It's odd, but when I fish for other species I always set out with a target in mind, but with pike I never did. Once my PBs had been upped to a level where they were going to be harder to beat I started to think of pike again.

In the Autumn of 2011 I headed back to the local drains. Something had changed. When I first fished them deadbaits were a waste of time. If you wanted consistent sport you needed livebaits. So that was how I started out - with two lives and a dead. Strangely the deadbait produced more pike and a better stamp too. The majority of modern pikers use deads as their first choice. and I have a feeling that the intervening years the pike had become more accustomed to finding discarded deadbaits

Back where I started

However, something else had changed. My approach. I always used to find that sitting it out in one spot and waiting for the pike to move past worked best. After becoming mobile in my barbel fishing I started moving about when piking. Now it was paying off. Sometimes I'd leapfrog, sometimes I'd pack up and move hundreds of yards. Often a move would result in a pike. I was also fishing short sessions rather than dawn to dusk jobs, and still catching enough to keep me interested.

My next move was to a return to a stillwater that never used to produce much over ten pounds. I knew the pike would take deads on there so that was easy. I was surprised to find that the pike had got bigger. The average jack was bigger, and there were twenties to be caught. Not by me, but a couple of mid doubles were nice enough.This was sit and wait all-day stuff though. Something I find increasingly tedious when not much action occurs.

This water involved a bit of a drive and by now I was really fed up of early starts - which this place needed to make sure of getting a decent swim, so it was a lucky meeting that saw me joining a water where the pike, much to my surprise, feed late in the day. In all my time I had never found many pike waters where the evening feeding spell could be relied on. One or two fish would get caught at last knockings but not enough of them to make afternoon sessions worthwhile. Only the canal and one drain ever did me any pikey favours after lunch in the winter.You can't beat fishing between lunch and tea during the winter without the need to make any pack-up and just a small flask of tea to keep the cold out. Keeping moving can see two or three fish banked in that time. It's great fun.

That's where my piking is again. I get the rods out when I feel like a piking fix, fishing locally, expecting to catch something every time I fish, hoping for a double or two and not worrying about twenties. If I get fed up I go home rather than stick at it until the death. I'm enjoying piking in a simple way just like when I started out. No targets beyond saving a blank, no pressure, no lists. Fishing is supposed to be fun, and I'm enjoying it.

I think my spring balance has rusted up though. It's sticking at nineteen pounds again. But these days I couldn't care less!

Dave Lumb

Interview Dave "Lumby" Lumb

The Pike Pool – Hi Dave. Many thanks for taking the time for an interview, it’s very much appreciated. 

So Dave Lumb or Lumby, you are known to most specimen anglers as a master rod builder, specimen hunter and photographer.

But what we want to know is, who is the really "Lumby"?

The Pike Pool - What is your earlier memory of angling?

Early years

DL - I'm not sure it counts as angling, but when I was four or five, I guess, on a holiday with my parents In Ross-on-Wye we unexpectedly bumped into my Dad's sister and her husband who, for some unaccountable reason, bought me a toy fishing rod. It was just a metal rod with a black plastic handle, built in plastic reel and two or three plastic rod rings. The reel was loaded with wiry mono and there was a red and white plastic float and a shiny hook.

As with all small children (and grown men!) I wanted to play with my new toy straight away. I'm sure my parents thought it wouldn't keep me amused for long and a bit of silver paper from my Mum's cigarette packet was put on the hook as bait for me to 'fish' with in a stream, no more than a couple of inches deep with the bottom clearly visible and not a fish anywhere in the vicinity. But I sat there, cross-legged on a concrete paving slab - the stream ran by the side of a footpath. That was the first time I uttered the words know to all anglers, "Just five minutes more."

Back home after the holiday that rod and reel became a favourite toy and I would play with them for hours. Even though I didn't go fishing again until I was about eleven. 

The Pike Pool - Who introduced you to angling and why?

DL - My first 'proper' fishing was done on another family holiday, this time with my Mum's cousin and family. The two sons were older than me and both into fishing. So that I could join in on the holiday, my parents bought me a rod and reel. 

To them, who never had any interest in angling (my Dad was a horse racing fanatic and golfer) a fishing rod was afishin grod. Again they didn't expect me to take to the sport and a white, six foot, solid glass spinning rod and bottom of the range reel were bought from Woolworths. The problem was we were going to stay outside Girvan in Scotland and the fishing would be sea fishing!

My two abiding memories of the holiday, from a fishing perspective, were watching my regurgitated salmon paste butties floating down tide of the charter boat we'd gone out on as the land disappeared from view when the boat was in a trough of the mountainous waves, and my soaking jeans sticking to my legs when we were left to fish off Ayr pier and the heavens opened!

None of this put me off fishing though. It wasn't long after that I started coarse fishing close to home, without much success, but plenty of enthusiasm!

The Pike Pool - After you caught the coarse fishing bug, you were bought your first setup 

by your parents, what was your first fish caught and can you remember what it weighted? 

DL - I had actually caught a couple of very small sea fish on that first boat trip, a tiny 

codling and a couple of mackerel on feathers as I recall. The first coarse fish came after a

couple of blank sessions fishing bread when I switched to maggots on the advice of an 

'old' angler and caught! 

My first fish wasn't the usual greedy perchlet, but a tiny bream that would have made a good live bait for perch. After that it was gudgeon from the drains and perch, roach and eels from the canal when fishing with other lads from the neighbourhood. Solid glass spinning rods and Black Prince reels. Kids today don't know how lucky they are with the gear that's available now and how cheaply!

The Pike Pool - As well as a master rod builder, your also known for you photography, but what got you hooked on the photography?

DL - I wouldn't say I'm a master rod builder. I think Jim Gibbinson said in the '80s that rod builders should really be called 'rod assemblers' these days! The photography goes back almost as far as the fishing. I was given a toy camera loaded with black and white film when I was probably six or seven, no older. I think the whole camera got sent away when the film was used up and the square prints came back bound with a plastic comb into a booklet. 

I vividly remember photographing a wild rose in a hedge near Ulverston with the camera, and my great disappointment at how tiny it turned out in the print. When I was eleven I was bought an Instamatic - which I took fishing with me as well as on holidays.

I really got the bug when I started A Level art as we had to do a project on architecture which required taking photographs of local buildings. My indulgent parents bought me a SLR. A Zenith E, which was what a lot of photographers of my age started out with if they couldn't afford a Praktica! I started to buy photography mags, do my own black and white developing and printing, and it went on from there.

Still out in all weather

The Pike Pool - You have been on many angling groups over the years and have become an honorary member of most of them, but what do you think is you biggest angling political achievement?

DL - I'm not sure I can think of one. Being involved in starting the LAS wasn't really a political achievement, the LAS is a social organisation. Perhaps getting the PAC involved with the SACG/SAA and getting them to try to do more for pike fishing was something of an achievement. At the time pikers, including myself, saw the SAA as doing nothing for piking. I went along to a meeting and spoke my mind. It became plain that they didn't do anything because pikers (PAC) never asked them to. That was when I realised  how predator anglers wants and needs differ from almost all other anglers, some of whom would quite happily support bans on our methods as an appeasement to outside bodies. This is why it's so important for predator anglers to have seats at all the relevant political tables. Our voice has to be heard in the right places. We need a bigger say within the AT.

The Pike Pool - You have a fair few angling mates who turn up from time to time on your blog, Duracell Bunny and Gord Burton are just two of them. Out of the two, who would you prefer to be stuck on a deserts island with and why?  

Fred watches over the rods

DL - Gord would be useful on a desert island because he can catch fish anywhere, so we'd never starve. However, unlike Fred the Barbel Bunny you can't put Gord in the rucksack when he won't shut up!! So I'd settle for the starvation.  

Pike Pool - On the subject of needing mates, you get on well with Neville Fickling, how did your paths’ cross?

DL - I'd been aware of Neville ever since he appeared on the back of Angling Times with a record zander (the same issue my name first appeared in small print on the Kingfisher Guild page as it happens), but we first met through PAC when I was joint conference organiser and he was on Trevor Moss's Tackle Shop stand. He was listening to The Archers on the Friday evening when the stall holders were setting up. Anyone who likes The Archers and cricket can't be all bad!

The Pike Pool - Many, many know you and your rods, but what is the quirkiest rod you have ever been asked to build and for who?

DL - I can't recall them all off the top of my head. A fourteen foot drifter rod isn't particularly quirky, nor is a set of Loch Tamers rung for distance - for carp fishing! Probably the most unusual was a 10 weight, single handed fly rod that had an extension handle enabling it to be used as a spinning and float fishing rod.

The Pike Pool - Back to the angling, you are known mostly for you pike and barbel, but you have caught loads of different species. But which one has meant the most to you and why?

DL - I've been lucky enough to fluke a few good fish here and there, and also be put on to one or two waters where fish were of big average sizes by friends. For this reason my one double figure tench means the most to me because I found the water myself, and in the first three years only saw two other anglers fishing it for tench. And one of them only the once. The downside was having to pretend to be a carp angler! A ten pound tench doesn't raise many eyebrows these days, but it was the work I put in to catch it that made it so satisfying. Like a lot of anglers I also have a soft spot for tench - they were the first species I targeted using 'specimen tactics', and the subject of the first article I got paid for. Oddly, once I'd caught that double I lost interest in the water, and tench for a while. But this spring I've a new tench goal - to catch an eight pounder close to home. I have a short list of waters drawn up. And no, Eric, yours isn't one of them!

The Pike Pool - And finally, is there one species of fish that you still want to catch to a 

specimen size or are you just happy being out there? 

I never set out wanting to catch fish of a certain size, only hoping to do so. I'd like to catch a two pound roach and beat my eel PB by design (that one took a boilie during the 'lost 

year' when I took up carp fishing...). A pound dace would be nice too. But if they don't come along, I'll not be losing any sleep over it.

My aims at the moment are to catch the biggest fish I can without travelling too far or fishing long sessions. I popped out for an afternoon this week and caught three pike in four hours, which was very enjoyable. The biggest was a few ounces under eighteen pounds. If you're catching fish, of whatever species, that are bigger than the average for any water on a regular basis that has to be fun. Some of my local waters have really improved in recent years compared to when I first fished them, and when you start to look around it's surprising what can be caught from unassuming waters. I couldn't face fishing commercials all the time but they can be worth a dabble now and again. Apart from big perch there are oddities like orfe to be had, and there's a sturgeon not far from home that I  might have a try for - just for a laugh. The biggest problem with commercials is avoiding the stupid carp which seem to eat anything you use for bait!  

The Pike Pool - Well, thank you Dave for this insight into you life and passions. I do hope 

the experience hasn't been too painful!!!

DL - I think I've survived.

Paternosters for all reasons

Dave Lumb

Back in the days when a bucket of livebaits was always with me when I was piking I settled on a very simple paternoster set up that eliminated tangles from lively baits and any chance of a bite off. I didn't invent the rig I just adopted it. When I say rig, there are two variations that I have used.

In the rig's simplest form all you do is tie your lead link to the eye of the top treble of a two hook trace. I know that this looks like it will restrict the bait's freedom. But that's kind of the point. It cannot swim up above the trace. It's lateral movement is limited, but not as severely as you might imagine. When fishing a sunk float a lively bait will be able to drag the float down as it swims away from its tethered position. It does have a circle of movement. With a surface float in use this is limited, but provided the float is set a little overdepth the bait will not be stuck in one spot. Watch the float and you'll see it move around in a small circle.

The link being tied to the hook doesn't deter pike from taking baits, and, perhaps surprisingly, doesn't result in a lead being lost every time a pike is hooked. I'm tight, and if I'd lost a lead every time I hooked a pike on this rig I'd have stopped using it after two fish. I lie. After one fish!

Where this rig really scores over the traditional paternoster is in casting. It casts more smoothly, without the 'bolas effect' associated with longer hook traces,and gives you greater accuracy. When faced with a strong headwind this set-up, using two ounce leads or heavier and a small bait hooked head up trace, can be punched out further than a big bait on a normal paternoster. It comes in handy for fishing baits tight up to stands of reed. Not only because it casts accurately, but because the bait can't swim too far from the reeds, or into them, once everything is set.

Sometimes I vary this rig by tying the lead link to the trace itself using a stop-knot knot a few inches above the hooks. I have done this when fishing livebaits, but mostly I do it with deadbaits. I don't have a logical reason for this, it just feels right to let a deadbait dangle away from the lead link. There is a drawback in that tied like this the link does get tangled with the hooks. More so with deads than lives for some reason. This is why I prefer to fish deads on a different paternoster rig. One that I've also used for trolling.

One that fell for a paternostered sardine

Again it is pretty simple. All there is to it is a John Roberts Paternoster Boom on the line above the trace. There is a rubber bead or a buffer bead between the boom and the trace to prevent damage to the knot and any chance of the boom jamming. Placing a float stop above, but not touching, the boom is optional. Fishing a paternostered deadbait on this rig is about as tangle free as you can get. It doesn't cast as well as the first rig, but that's the trade off. For trollernostering deadbaits it works a treat as they are prone to spin and cause tangles if a link is tied to the trace. It's the rotation of the boom around the line that stops most of the tangling. If you want to switch back and forth between a float paternoster to a float leger this rig is ideal. Cut the lead link off, clip a hooked snap link or paper clip onto the boom and attached the lead to that. Bingo. You've got a float leger rig!

These two rigs served me well for years. They are simple and don't involve making special traces. All I have to do is make up plain old snap tackles and I can use them for legering or paternostering deads, or by tying a link to the trace they can be used to paternoster lives. They're cheap on swivels and snaps, and they aren't tangle prone.

However, if you are into making dedicated paternoster traces, I have recently redeveloped one from my early days of rig making. It incorporates the anti-tangle properties of a boom, with the bite-off resistance of the link-to-hook rig. At a pinch it can be used as a a leger trace too.

Another to the Roberts Boom paternoster
back in the Dark Ages

Sometime back in the 1980s I wrote in Pikelines about a paternoster trace using a leger bead trapped between two superglued beads. I'd done well with it and it was far less tangle prone than any of the uptrace rigs I tried at the time. It's only drawback was that it was a bugger to make up. The beads had to have a tiny hole or they wouldn't glue to the wire and they would sometimes come unglued. Sticking them back in place once wet was impossible. Getting back into piking this winter I have been messing about with rigs in an effort to streamline things further. I've detailed my flexible drain rig on my Lumbland blog, but I've saved this dedicated paternoster for The Pike Pool.

All you do once you have the trebles attached to your trace is thread on a Fox Braid Stop followed by a leger bead and a second stop. Then finish the trace as normal. Okay, so getting the stops on to the wire isn't easy, it helps to soften them in boiling water to get them onto the trace wire, but that means they grip well. Once in place they can be moved up and down the trace to give the bait more freedom if it's a livey, or to keep it from the link of it's a dead. I've not had the stops slip on the cast, and unless you are really belting the rig out using a heavy lead I think they are most unlikely to move. As it's the bottom stop that would slip it wouldn't affect the uptrace properties of the rig in any case. Superglue would stop slippage, or you could try using two stops below the bead. However it isn't likely to be a problem needing solving.

Although I haven't tried it, I can't see any reason why this trace set-up couldn't be used for legering livebaits – with a short link tied between leger bead and lead – at least at close range. A poly ball or bait popper tied to one of the trebles was always my preferred presentation when legering lives on similar rigs in the past. To use the trace for legering or wobbling deadbaits simply slide everything up to the swivel and remove the weak link.

I'm not suggesting this is the ultimate paternoster rig. It is a good one though and if you want to avoid tangles and unnecessary joins in your paternoster traces while retaining the benefits of an up-trace, then the bead rig might be the one for you.

Ask the right question by Dave Lumb

Every so often people appear in print or on forums claiming to have an explanation for why they fail to catch on some days and do well on others. Over on The Pikers Pit recently Al Rawlings has been expounding on his theories about pike 'feeding scales' and how they are influenced by the weather and other forces of nature.

Waiting for something to change

Now I am not for one minute disputing that such forces play a part in pike behaviour. It's plain that they can do. A sudden influx of cold water can stop pike being caught, just as a rise in water temperature will see barbel being caught in winter. Fish are far more in tune with the element they live in, water, than we land based animals are. They detect changes in their environment long before we become aware of them. Pike will start feeding when a drain that has been still starts pumping –even though we might get our first take before we see the water begin to move.

More obvious to us are the ways light levels can affect our catch rates. Contrarily this can be a switch either from dull to bright or bright to dull! Many things can affect pike behaviour. This is not in dispute. What I do dispute is our 'need to know'.

There are supporters of theories concerning the moon's influence on angling results. Although I am sceptical I remain open minded. Eels are certainly reported to migrate under the moon's influence, and other watery creatures spawn or mate when the moon is in certain phases. There could well be a correlation between the moon and pike behaviour. I have yet to see evidence I can trust, but that's another issue.

But how useful is it, to the average angler, to know if the moon or certain weather patterns have a positive or negative effect on their catches? Given that most anglers can fish when they can fish and don't have the luxury of being able to pick and choose their days in order to fish when conditions are optimal, I would say it is no use. In fact I think 'knowing' you are fishing on a 'bad' day might lead you to fulfil the prophecy by not trying hard enough. It's a bad day so why put in any effort as it's doomed to failure. A rather negative logic. Albeit with a built in excuse. Not that anglers need help finding excuses for blanking!

The question everyone asks is: “Why aren't I catching?” Some phrase this as: “What conditions are causing me to have a bad day”, when the right question to ask (ifyou want to catch fish) is: “What can I do to make this bad day better?” You can't influence the weather or the moon - ever, but you can make better decisions about where and how you fish - always.

When I am not feeling lazy and just accepting my lot on a bad day I try to think like a match angler. Match anglers are lumbered with fishing when the match organiser tells them, and even worse they have no say in which peg they fish. If there are fish in the swim they draw then it's their fault if they fail to catch them. They can't blame the man in the moon or the weather girls on TV. It's down to them. They might first off start fishing for bites. Maybe searching the swim to find the fish, maybe feeding a particular spot to attract them. Then if the bites materialise but they aren't being converted to hooked fish they alter how the bait is presented until they convert bites into fish in the net. In the limited confines of one swim they are doing for a few hours what a pike angler can take all day to do over a wider area.

While pike fishing demands a different approach to, say, pole fishing this attitude is something a lot of pike anglers fail to take on board. It's a lot easier to say that your rigs/baits/lures worked last time so the reason you blanked is down to conditions than to admit you fished like an idiot. Sharing a boat with a better angler than you is a great way to learn that failure is down to how you fish. Two anglers in a boat fishing the same area are faced with the same conditions and the same pike. If one catches more than the other it's all because of how he fishes. The difference can be as subtle as bait size, or as obvious as casting to a particular place. Given the number of variables open to the pike angler there's a good chance that there'll be a way to catch something on most days.

I think it quite likely that there is a difference between a pike's willingness to feed and its susceptibility to being caught. Certainly when fishing with lures many pike are caught that aren't feeding.

Trying to make something happen

I see no reason why the same couldn't be the case with live or dead baits. I don't want to ascribe human traits to fish, but something akin to curiosity could be at play, or aggression, or any number of impulses that have nothing to do with feeding. All that matters is that they are sometimes willing to take our baits and lures into their mouths. That is all we are after. How we get them do do it is what fishing is all about. And for the most part it is down to location and presentation.

If you subscribe to the view that on somedays pike don't move far to feed/take baits then there is little point casting out at dawn and waiting for the pike to find your herring. On the other hand if you keep moving that herring around(recasting, twitching, leapfrogging) you've a chance of putting it close enough to a pike to get a pick-up. Get the location right and you are almost there. Pick the right presentation and you're on a winner. That is all there is to successful fishing, be it for pike or any other species.

Just like the match angler it's up to you to find the presentation that works on the day – with the added advantage that you can also go find the fish. Irrespective of the conditions, if you have the right mental attitude you will be trying to work out what that presentation is instead of worrying about why conditions are stopping the pike getting caught. Getting follows? Change the lure. Getting dropped runs? Refine your bite indication or end tackle, maybe change your bait. Sitting around waiting the fish's mood to change is poor angling. It wouldn't win a match angler much money. You have to make it happen.

Do I always follow my own advice? Of course not – I'm lazy! If I'm fishing to chill out I usually accept what comes my way for as little effort as possible, but when I'm really up for catching fish I do. If I blank on those days I only blame myself.