Best Winter Lures For Pike Fishing

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Winter Lures For Pike and how to Fish Them

Winter lures for pike fishing can be a very good method to catch more fish in otherwise a hard time of year to catch anything at all.

I have over 35 years of experience and made many blunders on the way to catch pike throughout the cold months of the year.

When it comes down to using lures in winter the first thing is to understand more about the fishes habits when the temperature plummets.

lethargic Winter Pike 

 

When the first frosts arrive the water temperate falls and this affects most species of fish.

Bait fish keep in a tight pack to feel secure in numbers and in most cases form around structures such as sunken trees, dying weed beds or even the cover of a jetty.

This provides a emergency retreat to evade a lurking predator as a form of escape.

The colder water however, reduces to the speed and activeness of all fish so a short getaway for prey fish is the answer which they never tend to move far away from.

Pike on te other hand will never venture too far away away from an intended ready meal.

Preserving energy is key in the cold water and remaining lethargic and close to the bottom motionless is what the pike will do but being aware of the bait fish nearby ready to pounce on any fish that lacks in concentration and gets to close the the predator in wait.

Attracting Bait Fish

 

Pre baiting? Yes pre baiting but not for pike, we want to attract lots of small fish into area that we can access with our lures.

I use brown crumb ground bait and select 3 to four possible places i think pike, baitfish and access is most probably the best areas to target.

Back eddy;s on a river or a deep hole are excellent places to start. On lakes it can be drop offs, reed beds or large overhanging trees and jettys are the best to checkout.

By throwing 4-5 medium golf ball sized balls of groundbait into a tight area to begin with and leave the swim untouched for about half an hour or more should attract the bait fish.

Small fish will be pre occupied with the free offerings and start to grow in numbers.

All this increase in activity will arouse predators and home in to investigate.

Fist arrivals are usually perch, as they take advantage of the small fish. As you know perch are a shoaling fish and arrive in small packs like wolves.

Yes you have guessed it, Pike love perch plus there now are smaller roach and bream joining in on the free buffet.

I have created a small feeding frenzy and the pike are homing in. Just keeping out of range the pike are checking for an unhealthy or unfit fish that it can be sure to catch.

Also check out the article Best Lures for Catching Pike in Cold Water

 

Imitating Feeding Bait Fish

For the lure angler it is important to imitate the bait fish the pike will see as a potential easy meal

Working on the knoledge the pike are close to the bottom plus bait fish are picking up bait that too is on the bottom. mimicing the bait fish and there presumed actions are going to be the way to approach the strategy to get results fast.

First thing i need to do is get an underwater map in my mind by using a weedless lure to check out the bottom were i intend to fish.

By no means is this a pointless exercise as the method is designed to catch something that is hungry.

A great start is a westin shadteez of 16 cm with a belly weighted hook.

How to Rig a weighted Soft Shad belly hook

 

Tackling Up for action

Keeping my tackle balanced for the eventuality of using large lures a rod of about 8-9 ft with a casting weight of around 100g is ideal.

A baitcasting reel that can hold 150 metres of 0.28 diameter braid is perfect,loaded with a good quality braid.

I love Berkley Whiplash 8 as it is very low diameter to strength but extremely smooth.

Attach a titanium wire trace at the end of the line and once you put on the rigged weedless lure you can start casting into the targeted areas.

I let the bait sink to the bottom after i have casted out the lure.

Your line will go slack when it touches down, now short pulls on the rod forcing downwards, slowly retrieve the lure.

Feel for any bumps and off maybe rocks, boulders or any other underwater structure and visualise were they are.

Continue casting around the area until you have a visual GPS set in your mind.

Doing this process can often end up with a take from a large perch or pike.

This proceedure may take around 20-30 minutes.

Getting The right Depth

If your bait is hitting structure underwater you need to know the depth of the spot your fishing.

This is simple by counting down the lure in a foot or two of water.

Count it down till it lands on the bottom, if it is about two seconds to a foot cast the bait and count it down till it reaches the bottom.

Example 16 seconds +  2  is 8 ft, now you now were the bottom is and any other lure you use just count it down is the side first till it hits bottom. This will tell you how many seconds per foot.

Now is the time you can try some more devasting lures that are going to get you a fish.

Winter lures for pike need to be fished close to the bottom and just high enough to pass over the snags.

Top Pike Lures Winter

We are ready to try out different pike lures through the per baited swim. Bearing in mind that fish like perch, roach and bream are more than likely holding up in small feeding shoals.

To tempt the pike imitating one of these bait fish has the best chance of a hook up.

Additionally we know how deep we need to fish the lures for success.

Westin-PERCY-THE-PERCH-Hard-Lure-INLINE-20CM-100G

Perch Jointed inline hard Lure Sinking swim bait is a great lure for this scenario imitating one of the possible fish species that the pike will be homing in on.

Percy the perch hard lure sinks quite slowly and is easy to check out the countdown number to reach the aquired depth.

Percy is perfecy for water depths of up to 8 feet and will run comfortable at 6 feet.

Retrieve percy slowly with a pause and twitch in between. The great natural swimming action will soon grab the attention of a hungry pike looking for the fish that seem easy to catch.

pro-SB80-BBZ1-Slow-Sinking-Swim-Bait-Pack-of-1

The spro BBZ swimbait sinks at the rate of 1 foot every 3 seconds, but the slow sink allows you to retrieve exactly at the level required.

A totally different swimming action to percy. Spro BZZ has a real fast vibrant swim motion that looks to be trying to escape a predator.

The erratic swimming action sends water vibrations that are picked up by pikes ultimate sensor tool kit to raise its interest.

Once the pike sees this awesome and inviting lure in action it will surely launch an attack.

A great winter lure for pike even if the water is murky.

Big Soft Plastics for Pike

Big soft plastis lures are fantastic if the bottom of the area you fishing is snag free.

Very east to use just cast them out and let them hit the bottom. Holding your rod up at around a 45 degree and wind in the slack line when the lure lands back on the bottom.

Imagine a feeding fish picking up bits of food on the bottom! that what are trying to imitate.

The soft plastic lures can be fished in several ways.

Letting them hit the bottom a several small lifts and followed by a long pull works very well.

Ths mimics a feeding bait fish feeding them moving to another spot to feed.

This is a devastating method that can provoke an attack for a pike at any time.

Slow retrieve and puse to let it got to the bottom and a few quick retieves with a jek looks like a sickfish and let it flutter back to the bottom.

Pike often take the lure on the drop so be ready throughout every part of the lures time in the water.

Curly and Paddle Tails Are a Deadly Winter Lures For Pike

Large soft baits with a curly pr paddle tail fished slowly are a deadly method for catching those lazy winter pike.

The both forms of tails produce lots of noise and vibration underwater that really trigger aggressive pike attacks.

Some of the best lure that fit this performance that i recommend you try are listed below.

Go for the largest sizes that possible to cast.

Pike seem to want big baits in Winter to make it worth the effort in catching this prey.

One or two fish this size will conserve the pikes energy rather than trying to catch a lot more smaller fish.

 

Large Curly Tail lures

Eel Lures For Pike Savage Gear 4D Real EEL

Eel lures can be a killer bait in the Winter for pike. Lots of action from a long curly tail makes the very appealing to pike as well as looking realistic.

Can be retrieved very slowly but this does not stop that long tail from moving majestically.

Lots of pike lure anglers love these lures and offten produce fish when other baits are ignored.

Treble hooks on the underneath of the eel soft bait. This is perfect for snaggy areas plus an addition stinger can be attached on the top or bottom of the lure to increase hooking capabilities of pike grabbing the lure in a place were there is no hook.

The Savage Gear Eel goes to 40 cm in length but there are smaller sizes.

Me personally would prefer the largest size and pike will too.

Curly Tail Bulldog Lures

Bull dog lures are a big favourite with pike lure fishermen catching lots of big fish.

Soft plastic lure with a long curly tail moves with a glide through the water while the long tail pulsates that triggers hits from large predatory fish.

Sinking lure can be counted down to a depth required. As the bulldog lure descends into the depths it glides from side to side at a 45 degree angle.

Many takes from pike hit the lure on the way down after casting, so it is important to stay alert all the time while the bulldog lureis in the water.

super Winter Lures for pike and can be fishing at any depth. Fast retrieve with the rod tip high can glide a bulldog lure over the tops of weed beds.

Allowing the lure to sink and a slow retrieve can reach big predatory fish lying on the bottom in winter.

Paddle Tails

22 cm Soft Plastic Shad

The large shadteez soft plastic lure fished properly can be devastating for catching pike in winter.

Rigging up the lure you will need a few components like Screw Head For Soft Shads 5G GRUNKI

Stinger rig for the hooks and single and double hooks are all fine on this sizeable rubber fish.

Different weighted screw heads is the choice of the angler in accordance of what he wants the lure to do.

Weighted heads give the lure the ability to be sunk down to the bottom and jigged back towards you.

Also keeping the lure down deep a slow retrieve with the occasional quick short pull can to be effective.

A awesome all rounder and really works well in the Winter lures for pike category.

Awesome big soft plastic lure for pike with a paddle tail.

Using a stinger rig it makes a killer swimbait or attaching a weighted screw head can be used to jig and jerk close to the bottom for winter pike

Upgrade of the incredible 3D River Roach with scented Photo Chrome colors

The River Roach 4D soft plastic lure is extremely versatile and carry one of these lures all the time is a super idea. One definitely to use as part of your Winter Lures for Pike collect and it surely will not leave you disappointed.

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