You MUST WATCH This Video If You Bait Fish For Pike!

This video is a must watch for anyone that fishes dead bait for pike! In this video we take a look at one of the most popular rigs in pike fishing. The float ledger. In this video a camera is positioned beneath the surface watching the bait and another is watching the float, so we can see exactly what happens when a pike takes the bait.
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Hello guys and welcome back to the channel So today we’re having a bit more of a theory session the pike season is upon us or rather the unofficial Pike season we’re now in October and I thought maybe it would be a good idea to start taking a look at different Rigs

And different presentations of dead baits underwater to see exactly what happens and what goes on down there so today we’re looking at one of the most popular setups that people use for dead bating for Pike and that is the float Ledger rig now I’ve done it almost to

The box as best as I can do um to hopefully be able to Aid people in the way they fish or just to be able to see exactly what goes on under the water see just how many fish ignore your bait which is going to be a prominent thing

In this video as I’ve already filmed it and hopefully we’ll be able to take something away from this so down to the specifics of the rig I’m using a relatively small cigar float I’m fishing at close range on a canal low wind conditions I don’t need a super visible

Float braid wise I’m using very heavy braid on the this dead bait setup in particular 60 lb braid um going down to right now lots of people use heavy leads for dead baiting uh when using float Ledger because obviously you don’t want the lead to move when the fish picks up

Your bait but with a canal being super silty I can’t go too heavy or my light lead’s going to go right down into the silt and stop the bite indication so I’m fishing a 2 and 1/2 ounce lead on a large run ring to enable the line to pull through freely obviously free

Running then a fishing a wire Trace without any hooks on obviously this is the theory session we’re doing today so a standard Trace as recommended on the like angling Club um recommends that on a float Ledger rig you fish a 45 cm Trace minimum so I’ve got roughly a 30

Plus CM piece of wire which I’ve attached a clip on the end which I’m just literally pushing into the tail of the Dead bait because obviously if I had the hooks on there that i’ probably make it about 40 to 45 cm so roughly this is a trace that is recommended for this

Style of fishing so hopefully everything is by the box and we get to see exactly what happens when the fish takes a bait on a float Ledger rig we’ve got the camera positioned on the bottom as well as having the camera positioned on the bank pointing at the float to match up

The footage to the millisecond so the moment that fish picks up the bait you get to see what kind of indication you get on the float and exactly how much it takes to be able to get an indication to so let’s crack on get a bait in the

Water the camera in the water and see what goes on down There the baits that I’m using are all freshwater roach and Rod size between 6 to 8 in on average so I did a relatively long amount of filming before actually getting any proper solid takes or indications or indeed fish properly taking the bait and be having to pull

The bait out of the mouth what we got is a lot of attention though it was amazing just how many fish or just how many times the same fish can actually come and look at your bait on the bottom and at one point I had a very inquisitive

Young Pike probably about 3B in size but actually came over to the camera to investigate and took a little bite light out the top of the camera which I thought was really interesting obviously the camera down there is emitting a small amount of heat I’ve got no lights

On the camera um there’s no movement there’s no sound but there is a small amount of heat and I don’t know whether that is what attracted the pike to go over and have a look and investigate but that was quite a common thing I didn’t always capture it on camera but even

Just behind the camera the pike were coming in and goinging right up to it some of these Pike Circle the baited area for five six times often they would come down to the bait have a look sometimes they’ have a little nibble or nudge the bait before lifting up

Swimming off again before coming back around and a lot of times they did this over the course of maybe 5 to 10 minutes maybe a bit longer but almost always they would eventually just move away and not come back and that would be it what I did find was a constant thing that

Kept bringing the pike back over to the bait when it seemed like they’d lost interest was to Twitch it twitching the bait and it’s something a lot of us Pike Anglers deal especially as dead baiters um it’s something that is quite common you’ll find that if you bait been sat

For a long time with no movement no touches the moment you reel you bait back a little bit or reel it back or for and then leave it sometimes that can trigger a take and that seems to be what happened a lot during this filming Process In fact you can see in this clip right here the pike is sat just off the corner of the shot and the moment I start twitching that bait back just a few inches the pike does a full 360 turns around and go straight down to that bait but what’s really interesting about this

Clip is I captured Su on water that I didn’t actually intend on capturing this session the pike was showing a lot of interest to that bait actually picked it up spat it out it flew off camera and when the pike was off camera it was actually Goring on that bait and then

Something happened something appeared at the corner of my eye that I didn’t expect and that was a Canal barge I don’t know how many people have filmed Canal barges coming overhead from beneath the surface but I found that quite interesting as you can see the

Park did not hesitate to get out the way of that barge coming thankfully I did not lose the camera though and at this point now it was time to actually get a fish to take that bait completely and to film the float moving at the same time as well I

Had to wait roughly about 20 minutes after the boat had gone for the water to clear and then it was time to get that bait back out there and it did not take long after that bait hit the bottom before we got some Action Is I’ve heard so many times people in pangling say either wait a certain amount of seconds before you strike or wait until the fish starts moving away with your bait to set the hul this is one of them times where the moment that float indicated the hul could have been set

And that fish was hooked leaving that fish for any amount of time would result in a deep hooked fish this is the reason why I didn’t put hooks in the bait I wanted to be able to see how long it took for the pike to start ingesting

That bait um in correlation to how much movement you get at actually on the float and what you can actually see is you don’t get that much movement when the fish initially takes your bait very small Twitches even though that Pike hammered the bait the float hardly moves

Because when you think about it you’ve got a relatively long trace and the fish needs to pull all the slack and then start pulling your actual braid down to the lead for that float to up and start drifting down ideally you could have I could have struck then on the

First twitch and got a hook up no problem it actually would have been both hooks inside the Park’s mouth too now that footage was enough we got the footage of that Pike taking the bait but I wanted at least one more it was taking a lot of time to get this footage

And a lot of effort so if you guys want to subscribe feel free I’m going to be doing more footage like this coming up and make sure to leave a like and share the video too if you’re enjoying it so now it’s time to get another take I

Needed a bigger Pike that fish was roughly around about4 pound in size the bait I was using roughly around about 6 in I was going to use a bait of roughly around the same size 6 7 in but we’re going to try and look for a bigger Pike

And we did I managed to find a pike that was around about 6 or 7 pound in size and after a few passes and a few looks at the bait it did eventually come down and we got our second proper take of the session now this Pike even though it was larger

Was a little bit more hesitant on eating the bait it didn’t W it down straight away like that first one it did pick up the bait and was chewing on it but as you could see if he was fishing a bog standard double treble hooked rig the

Moment that fish picked up the bait there would be like a 90% chance that there’d be hooking that fish’s m mouth and I bet you if I had have struck straight away the moment that fish had picked up and had the hooks in I would

Have hooked up to that fish this is the thing if you’re using a conventional double treble rig that most Park Anglers use I’m going to say probably a good 80% of dead beta’s use then you could get a hook up the moment you get a twitch on

That float which I’m hopefully going to prove at the end of this video but yeah that fish picked up the bait very little movement again this fish a slightly bigger fish a bit slower fish and did start moving off and slowly dragged that float under as you could tell by the

Footage and obviously gave that fish a free meal during the course of filming these takes without having the hooks in it was amazing just how many fish touched the bait uh grabbed the bait just nipped at the bait even picked it up sometimes and showed absolutely no movement on the float whatsoever like

The amount of fish that came in and nudged the bait and you didn’t get any indication and if the water wasn’t clear you would just think you’d G had a session where you’d had no action maybe there was no fish there when if in fact there was they’re just very very smart

And very curious and very inquisitive which we’ve obviously seen throughout the video we had Pike nibble in the camera I’ve had Pike coming up watching the float really interesting Behavior when they come up and watch the float I actually think it’s because the oils are coming out of the fish and obviously

Because oil and water doesn’t mix when the fish oils come out they go straight up and I think the fish were following the center of the fish oils and and seeing the float on the surface and getting distracted and maybe thinking that that was a fish too it happened

Multiple times in the video at least three or four times I had pipe going up and staring at the float on the surface as opposed to the dead bait um some people may look at that and think stupid fish but at the end of the day I think

It is just something to do with the scent Trails going up and seeing that silhouette and wondering what it is but now we reached the end of the video and I couldn’t leave this video without catching you a pike so I’m going to go to an area now where I’ve been filming

These fish going to go out there with a dead bait and what we’re going to do is the moment we get a bit of indication on the float couple of little Twitches to tell us that a fish has picked up the bait we’re just going to set the hook

We’re not waiting we’re not waiting 10 seconds we’re not waiting for the float to start drifting off down the canal we’re just going to set the hook straight away and see what happens standard double treble rig one hook point in the tail one hook point just

Down the back of the fish and we’re going to see exactly what happens let’s go try it out now moment that float moves we’re going to set the hog yep there we go there’s a twitch yep let’s go for it yes fish on Fish on we did not need to wait for that

Strike so a few small Twitches I knew that fish must have picked up the bait that’s how we like it I believe that’s the same fish that I filmed underwater yesterday I recognize it that’s what I wanted to say knock my lead off beautiful fish let’s get it on the grass here to

Knock it very quickly look at that just one a hook point in the mouth like I say the moment the fish picks up that bait there will be a hook point if you’re using double trouble rig there will be a hook point in that fish’s mouth the moment it grabs

Your bait nine times out of anyway if it’s a decent Siz fish there we go right let take a look at it the water’s clear I could see what was going on anyway but waitting to see those first two Twitches picked up the road set the hook single hook point right in the

Scissor didn’t need to wait for that right let’s get this one back what a gorgeous fish to end off this wonderful video so guys I think that brings us to the end of our session I hope you guys have been able to take away something from this video I sure have I didn’t

Realize quite how how much time it took to get a decent indication after a fish picked up the bait obviously the fish have to move that wire Trace but I didn’t realize just how much they have to move it to get a positive indication on the float and it was interesting to

See the differences in how Pike take the bait one of them absolutely smashed it and go the whole thing in one bite and it was only a small fish about4 pound and then we had one maybe six or seven maybe a bit bigger fish pick up the same

Size bait and take the time with it but still would have got an instant hook up on the twitch and then right at the end managed to get that Pike straight away set the Hulk within 2 seconds of noticing the twitch and got a solid hook

Up to that fish if you want me to do any other kind of filming like this looking at different rigs underwater let me know I’m going to give it a go obviously we’re heading towards Predator season so pie and perch I’ve really enjoyed doing this video If you lik it don’t forget to

Share it around because I think other people might find it quite interesting too and I’ll catch you guys later