pike fishing

[frankt]

hello,i have caught pike on lures but have never had any luck fishing with live chubs or minnows,any helpfull tips or info would be appreciated,like size of bait and hook size,hook placement and placement how far up the bobber should be and do you wait to set hook thanks you

[TeamEighmey]

No matter where on the lake we fish we put out pike rigs, we use large bobbers, steal leaders 4-6inchs, with a trebel hooks usualy size 4 or 6 and you can use the mediam or large pike minnows, hook em threw the top of the back so they can swim freeley still, set your bobber to what depth you want fish. It works great for pike usualy we put them out while were fishing for other fish and when you happen to look around an your bobbers missing then the fun begins, and we found no matter how big of a minnow you put on you may hook into other fish besides pike, bass sometimes crush them, we've caught 16-17"inch bullhead and even a few 12- 13 inch perch on that rig its suprising how many fish will hit a giant minnow besides just pike regardless of thier size lol Good Luck and happy Fishing

[TeamEighmey]

also in regards to depth, depending on the area sum rigs you can set 1 1/2ft - 2 ft and throw them up along the shorelines , alot of the times the pike are cruisin the shoreline, a few times we sat in in bays in about 6 foot of water and set our rigs 3-4 ft and did really good, 5 or 6 pike a bay, and we also have luck in the deeper water sometimes too, in which we set em a good 5-6 ft deep, but any of the areas i ,emtiomed we have had success at any depth no matter how deep the water is as u know sometimes they cruise deep sometimes just below surface i had a few times this year where i was set a little deeper and I actualy had fish hit my bobber both times breaking my rig off because they had obviuolsy bit above my leader. so i would shallow it up and throw it right back out and have success.

[frankt]

thanks for the info on pike fishing with live bait , if i do see something messing with the live bait by watching the bobber do you wait for the bobber to go completely under before setting the hook

[TeamEighmey]

Ya usuly by the time you look around its gone already , ide say 90% of the time the bite happens when you not looking, we alwasy say that jokng around when you looking at it , they wont bite, if you bs have sum convo or fish for sumthing else while u wait then they hit haha usualy we wait until it completly goes dowmn if sumthins bumping it it may not be big enouph to take it down , so we usualy wait until it tows it down completley .

[bigmouth]

I don't usually fish for Pike but I'm gonna try this tactic this weekend...long leader with treble hook over a bobber baited with a big pike minnow. Sounds similar to ice fishing and I love that.