One of these pieces of equipment that needs particular attention is a quality landing net.  Landing nets are essential because it decreases the trauma you cause to a pike as you take it out of the water and also prevent the fish from breaking the line close to the shore.  You can lose as much as twenty-five percent of your fish by attempting to land them.  The net should have at least a thirty inch diameter and should be made out of rubber instead of traditional nylon ones.  Rubber nets last longer and are more humane to the fish because it doesn’t remove the protective slime that covers them as easily.

You should also have an unhooking mat with the rest of your tackle also to help prevent removing the protective slime that covers the fish.  Floats to keep your bait at the level you want it and bite indicators, especially important if you have more than one line in the water, are also important pieces of any pike angler’s toolbox.

Look At That Mouth

The most important thing you can do is get a wire leader for your line.  This is what directly prevents a pike’s teeth from breaking through your line.  The leaders needs to be able to withstand pressure of at least thirty pounds and should be the last fifteen inches of your line.  A fifteen inch leader may sound a bit long, but this is in case the pike swallows the hook deeper than normal.  One more thing you need to look for when choosing leaders is to make sure that they come with a good swivel.  If the swivel is cheaper and not well made it can break during a fight, or even cut through the line itself if it gets turned around.

You fishing line itself also needs to be stronger than usual.  Fifteen pound test line is usually adequate to reel in most pike.

Fishing Pier in Texas

The most important things you need to take into account when choosing are reel are to make sure that it is strong, reliable, and it’s strength is matched with the strength of your rod.  There are many different options for strong, reliable rods today, but if you choose a respected manufacturer such as Daiwa, you most likely will not be disappointed with your rod’s performance.  The extra money you pay now will more than be made up for in increased performance later.  It is also important to match the strength of your rod and reel, this will make sure that both of the most important pieces of your tackle will operate at the level they were designed to.

Generally, baitcasting reels also work better than regular spinning reels unless you are using lures with a lot of movement.  Baitcasting reels give you more power when you are reeling the fish in and also are more accurate.  They are a little bit harder to use, but once you master the technique needed to use a baitcasting reel you will be able to cast your line out further and with the pinpoint accuracy that you need to put your bait in the pike’s strike range.

Any rod that you are planning to use for pike fishing should also be a little bit longer than the fishing rod you would otherwise use in that circumstance.  The reasoning behind this is two-fold.  It gives you more hook setting power when you are setting the hook in the pike’s mouth and also gives you more accuracy when you cast.  Casting accuracy is especially important because it gives you the ability to place baits right around the underwater obstructions pikes like to hide in.  If your casts are too inaccurate, you may end up catching more rocks and weeds than pikes!

A Really Big Pike

Pikes are a predatory fish that has a range encompassing the entire Northern Hemisphere.  They can be found anywhere from the Great Lakes of North America to the frigid cold of Siberian Russia.

Pikes have evolved to be one of the biggest predatory fish in many freshwater fishing environments.  They are designed to be ambush predators, laying in wait in weeds, rocks, or hiding in other underwater structures, waiting for the perfect moment to strike their unsuspecting prey.  They are also extremely powerful, aggressive fighters with rows of razor-sharp teeth in their mouths.  This makes almost any pike strike an experience you won’t soon forget.

On top of this, they also reach an incredible size when compared to other freshwater fish.  The world record pike was over six feet long and weighed in in excess of seventy-seven pounds.  Try to find a rainbow trout that big!  Hopefully this blog will give some background information on the type of pike fishing tackle that is needed to stalk these giant predators.