Pike in Your Waters - still free to download

It's almost 10 years since the Pike Anglers Club of Great Britain published a booklet called Pike in Your Waters. It's still essential reading for anyone who cares about pike conservation - or anyone who runs a fishery, who wants to find out more about the role that pike play in the upkeep of a vibrant, balanced water.

Checking our webstats - like you sometimes do - we find a lot iof our visitors find this blog after looking for more information about pike conservation on search engines like google.

If you click this link, you can download Pike in Your Waters for free. You might also be interested in some of the factsheets and other stuff in the Information Library section of our main website.

Is your local river right for pike fishing..?

COLOURED UP: The Ouse at Ten Mile Bank, last winter

Hat tip Phil Heaton on the PAC Members' Forum for this link to the EA's flood warning website, which lets you check the state some of our rivers are in.

Useful aid if you're planning a pike fishing trip on the waterways featured. Click your region on the map, click on the river and if there's a green dot, there's a flood monitoring station which gives data on the river level.

"Apart from that you will catch nothing at home so get out and give it a go," Phil, who's RO for Rotherham and Sheffield, told the forum.

Sometimes, a net's kinder on the fish says Eric

Eric Edwards has some thoughts on pike handling in his latest blog post. As usual for Eric, it's interesting stuff.

Pike anglers differ over whether nets are better than hand-landing or vice versa in different circumstances.

Where the fish is hooked and what with - ie bank or boat, bait or lure - and how big it is determines how many opt to land them.

"There are times when hand landing a pike is the right thing to do but by and large a net is kinder to the fish," writes Eric.

"If people have to land a fish by hand they should put down the rod as soon as the fish is secured and take both hands to it. This is to prevent the fish from thrashing around - that's when the damage is done."

Click here for the rest of an excellent post. And scroll down the right hand side for more advice and pike fishing tips.

Legered deads - fine tune your pike fishing

LEGERING: Do we really understand what's going on when we get a run..?

Legering a deadbait must be the most popular form of bait fishing by far. But how good's your bite indication - and do you really understand what's going on under the surface, when your alarm goes..?

Click here for a thought-provoking article from our links bar, by Dave Lumb. There's more on Dave's approach to rigs here, here and here.

Pike Fishing - an essential guide from AT

They're calling it the Essential Guide, this Angling Times feature is certainly a great beginner's guide to the basics of rigs, baits and fish handling. Click here for a read.

+++Scroll down the right for links to loads more articles on bait and lure fishing, from the basics to more advanced pike fishing tips.