Esox Time

[Steve Lewis]

Gents…

With my first foray back into piking for nearly 20 years, I’ve decided to change things up a bit and run some experiments.

None of you have asked for this, but I had my own curiosity, and thought that others may be interested.

I’ve already undertaken a test to try and form my own opinion about the twist vs. crimp argument. Noting that many experienced pike anglers prefer twisting, believing crimping to be for beginners only and not as strong as twisted traces, and myself finding crimped traces FAR easier, quicker and tidier to make, at the weekend I decided to sacrifice various wires and a few trebles to really put twisted and crimped traces through the test.

Wires used were:
Drennan Soft Strand (20lb)
Drennan 7 Strand (20lb)
Drennan Green (28lb)
Drennan E-Sox Super (24lb)

(I don’t use anything other than Drennan)

The test was simple – end treble tight in a vice, swivel end of the trace attached to a strong spring loaded tubular weighing scale, and pull to breaking point.

With 3 crimped and 3 twisted with each wire, the results were interesting.

In all but one case, both twisted and crimped traces broke around or just over the stated breaking strain. The one that didn’t was a crimped one, where the very end of one crimp was crushed down, and the edge of it obviously weakened the wire, and that one broke well below stated breaking strain.

The crimped traces all broke at one of the crimps, whereas the twisted ones broke randomly at some point along the wire, usually between the swivel end and first treble. Aside from aesthetics, this was the only major difference I could see between the two.

So, in my eyes, twisted traces offer no advantage over crimped, as long as you make sure to leave either end of the crimps uncrimped.


My next test will be a practical field test – double vs. treble hooks. Having read about so many experienced pikers moving away from trebles over to doubles (yet, ironically, double hooks are a lot rarer than they used to be…) in the last few years, and others saying that doubles are really only suitable for small baits (a point I’ve always found hard to understand given that, regardless of whether it’s a double or treble, with semi-barbed hooks you’re only going to be using the one barbed point to hook the bait), I’ll be using both side-by-side to see whether there is any noticeable difference – ease of unhooking, dropped bites, shaking the hook(s) off, etc etc. I will also trial a hybrid, where the first hook will be a treble and the end hook will be a double.

No doubt you’ve got your own opinions on all of this…

More results as I get them.

 

[Anthony Pearson]

Then you can address the debate about barbed/barbless. I use semi-barbed for pike but barbed for zander. The latter resulting in a three-hour wait in A&E last week:

 

[Steve Lewis]

Ouch!


Easy one to answer, though - semi-barbed or barbless only is one of the club rules, so that decision has been made for me.

However, given the choice - semi all the way (fnarr). I've always fished barbless for other species anyway, due to it being quicker and easier to unhook, and completely eschewing net-knot nightmares.

As I've never had it happen (that I could see, at least), I don't buy into this barbless hooks moving about thing.

 

[Iain Tutt]

I only use barbless doubles these days as their easier to remove from Pike and fingers.
50% of my hooks fall out into the net once the Pike is landed.
As for wire and hooks, i will only use Drennan, like most of my kit where possible. At the moment i am finding Drennan doubles hard to find so am using Partridge hooks and some i got from Japan. I have always used the twist method. I have tried crimping but found this always caused a week spot at the ends of the crimps. But it may just the way i crush them.

 

[Dave Taylor]

https://barbel.co.uk/site/vbulletin/forum/members/picture.php?albumid=496&pictureid=5743
Good post Steve,...I used to twist my traces and used easy twist. Still got loads left but I went back to crimps and use prowler crimp sleeves.
No particular reason, other than nearly knocking a front tooth out when twizzeling a trace with two pairs of forceps!
I feed the trace wire end back down into the crimp leaving a small loop which supposedly prevents slippage.
Never had a problem with either method really, as long as the right sized crimping pliers are used.
Kinking was often a problem especially with small jacks.
The old live bait middy trace was very subtle and resistant to kinks,..but was thick and expensive.

I did try doubles for a couple of seasons but found they sometimes had a tendency to lay flat on soft baits,...that was a long time ago, and as mentioned don't seem to see them much in the shops.
As my local tackle shops ( at my last gaff) didn't stock quality pike hooks I brought in bulk from The Tackle Shop in Gainsborough and favoured the Partridge N. Fickling semi barbless in 8,s and 10,s. Still have some left but am running low.

Anthony....that pic should be X rated !

 

[Steve Lewis]

Iain - Partridge hooks are excellent and are my go-to pike hooks, although I am also very fond of Kamasan, and I always have a stash of Drennan trebles knocking about in the tackle box (although I tend to use those as on-the-bank emergency back ups). I also really liked the old Leeda trebles (with the green label), but it looks like they don't make those any more.

Dave - I also feed the tag end back into the crimp. The loop also allows for hingeing, which puts less stress on the hook hold during the cast and also is less rigid on the take. As for kinks, I've yet to find a wire that is fully resistant to them. I've just bought a spool of the E-Sox Super, which isn't hugely more expensive than other Drennan wires, and it claims to be kink resistant. But, other than for the trace test, I haven't actually used it yet. We'll see how it goes.

The double problem you mention is the only negative I can think of, and must admit it's one I wouldn't know how to prevent, aside from the hybrid solution. I'll give it a go...

 

[Iain Tutt]

Steve - I have just ordered some Kamasan hooks in different sizes as there is no fixed and fast rule on compatible sizes

 

[Steve Lewis]

Hi all.

Just a quick update to this thread, for those that were interested...

I know I said I'd keep you all posted with on-bank experiences with the double vs. treble debate, and also the E-Sox super wire.

Unfortunately, despite several all-day sessions, it's been a VERY hard pike season on the Somerset levels thus far. A 2lb jack here and there, but otherwise it's pretty much been a complete blank every session, on every water I've visited. I don't know if it's the inconsistent weather (this week alone we've seen temperatures go up to 11 and then plummet to 1 the very next day), excessive peat run off affecting the water quality (nearly all of the drains have been incredibly coloured since November - not good when caused by peat run-off), an abundance of weed still left at the bottom making for difficult presentation, or a combination of all. Speaking to others on the bank, it would appear to be a similar general situation.

More than one person has also told me that over the last few years, and 2016 in particular, there have been a lot of Eastern Europeans taking dozens of pike from the water per session, from little jacks up to mid doubles. I'd like to think that that was just otter/mink-like exaggeration, but when more than one unconnected and otherwise seemingly reasonable person tells you that they have witnessed exactly the same thing, you do begin to wonder...

Anyway, there's still a couple of months of the season left, so we shall see...

 

[Dave Taylor]

Hi all.

Just a quick update to this thread, for those that were interested...

Well I'm interested Steve,...
Barrie Rickards used to write about the ' pyramid effect' , which basically examined the reasons behind pike population peaks and troughs on different venues and the fragility of the species.
All the negatives you suggest may be part of the reason for a dip in captures but some conclusions can sometimes be contradictory.
For instance, poaching,.... its only in modern times that pike aren't knocked on the head prior to a photo, as is shown with many old pics from the sixties and seventies.
Match oriented committees also used to sanction regular culls, .. but despite all of this the pike fishing remained good, so are poachers really destroying our sport? ..maybe?
It's true that big female pike are an extremely important part of the riverine environment and are not quickly replaced when lost though which can have a long tern effect.
Over fishing as in constant angling pressure coupled with bad handling can impact, but that's always been a problem.
Turbidity has never been great for pike angling, unlike zander,... but they still have to feed.
To be honest Steve, it can be an enigma.
I've witnessed what were once good pike waters decline over decades and suspect that the cormorants have a part to play.
A healthy pike population is a reflection on present fodder fish and visa versa, but the impact can be slow and delayed, which is shown on the pyramid graphs.

 

[Dave Taylor]

What I neglected to say, was a that combination of depleted pike stocks through lack of prey AND persistent poaching can almost finish off a venue from an angling perspective.
It's stating the bl##ding obvious, but if poaching accounted for ten lost fish in a well stocked water it would have minimal impact, but if there were only 11 fish present its game over! Bear in mind that they often discretely longline so it doesn't matter if the fishing is difficult.

 

[Joe Winstanley]

I know next to nothing about fishing on the Somerset Levels but I did wonder if there is also the impact of the flooding in the winter of 2013-14 to consider. Given the extent and duration of the flooding its hard not to think that this must have some impact on fish stocks, especially when you consider all the pollutants that were released into the levels - septic tanks, over-flowing sewage treatment plants, agricultural pesticides, household chemicals, many farmers had to open up the gate valves on their slurry stores during peak flows in order to reduce the risk of causing more pollution when there was less available dilution.

what are other anglers saying about the fishing before and after the floods?

 

[Dave Taylor]

Excellent point there Joe,...it would be interesting to have some feedback on other species on the Levels to see how they have faired.

 

[Steve Lewis]

Good points Dave and Joe. The flooding especially I had not considered...

I went back down there on Sunday (and was more successful - more on that in a moment) and, chatting to others, the consensus seemed to be that a mixture of factors have come into play. Now, if you've read any of my posts in the Bristol Avon thread, you'll know that, contrary to popular opinion, I'm a bit sceptical about otters and/or mink being solely responsible for the "decimation" of fish in the river. My thoughts would be similar for the levels too - mink have been present on the levels, in good number, since the 60s, and otters were first re-introduced in the 70s, so in the mid to late 90s, arguably when the pike fishing was at its peak, both mink and otter populations had already balanced naturally. HOWEVER, I have since learnt that several "rescued" breeding otter pairs were illegally introduced to the King's Sedgemoor Drain, South Drain and River Brue some 10 or so years ago and, on the South Drain in particular, they have apparently had quite an impact. But it's not the impact you might think...

So most of the experienced levels anglers I spoke to on Sunday all said the same thing - the newly introduced otters haven't decimated the pike population, rather they've made the pike nomadic. One thing you could always rely on on the levels was the pike never going too far from their usual haunts – much like the barbel on the Avon – but the otters have scared them away and they have now become like the carp and never stay in one place for too long. The pike ARE there, you just need to find them. Like the barbel on the Avon.

The other generally held thought was that the single biggest impact on the pike population has been “all the Polishâ€. When I mentioned the “Polish Problem†(as it worryingly seems to have become known in pike angling circles), more than one angler I spoke to independently recalled a now apparently infamous week a few years ago where a “van full of Polish†hammered the KSD and South with long lines AND rods and pulled “hundreds, if not thousands†of pike from the water and took them home. They were also demanding to have pike caught by other anglers. Apparently the police, EA and at least two Bridgwater club bailiffs were called by several people, but no one ever turned up. (I’ll interject myself at this point with an addendum – two guys I spoke to, again independently of each other, both said “that’s why I voted for Brexitâ€. I had to stop myself from saying “I don’t think you see the point, nor do I think it will achieve your sole reason for voting to leaveâ€â€¦) But they don’t think the pike have recovered from that and much of the KSD is devoid of fish.

Interestingly, there was not a single mention of flooding or pollution, although I do happen to know that the water quality and aquatic environment on the levels (and the Bristol Avon) has, for the last few years, been as good as it ever has – a mate’s wife takes water samples in the region for the EA, as well as Thames, Wessex and South West water companies, and her records, which go back to 1996, show water quality increasing since the late 00s, with year-on-year improvement continuing. I’m not sure how much of an impact the pollutants with the last lot of flooding had at the time, but as of summer 2016 they had not really altered the long-term quality. I don’t know if that’s because the water and relating environment was already so good when it happened that it recovered itself quickly, if the authorities jumped on it quick, or a combo of the two.


Anyway, back to the fishing…

Finally broke the blank and caught several fish from 2lb up to about 9lb, mostly in good condition, from several venues. Interestingly though, and perhaps corroborating one of the above comments, ALL of the pike I caught from the South Drain had obvious signs of otter attack.

The treble vs. double debate – I caught nearly as many on the double hooks as I did on the trebles. I did lose two, but both as a result of them jumping out of the water and shaking the hooks out, which could easily have happened with trebles. One I did catch swallowed the bait quite deep and the bottom hook was caught in its gullet. With a treble, that of course normally means cutting as much of the wire and/or hook off as you can and hoping for the best, but with the double it was an easy long forceps clamped on the shank of the hook, push down, rotate a bit and gently pull out (fnarr, etc), with no visible damage or distress to the fish. So, on that basis, I would advocate moving to doubles. However, the two places I was getting double hooks from have now both stopped selling them and have removed them from their website. The sole remaining ones that I can find (on eBay) are very expensive, almost prohibitively so, so I think sticking with trebles is the sensible option, for now at least. I have read several comments on other forums that suggest Partridge are about to release a new version of their old ryder hooks, but nothing yet.

As for the Drennan E Sox Super wire, it performed admirably and is indeed a lot more kink resistant than almost every other wire I’ve tried. Whether or not it will last any longer because of that, I don’t yet know – too soon to say – but given it doesn’t cost that much more than the regular wire, I don’t see any reason not to stick with it.