Fishing for Big Pike - the return

Barrie Rickards has re-written 70s classic Fishing for Big Pike, which he famously co-authored with the late Ray Webb.

Cambridgeshire-based Barrie, a founder member of the PAC, revolutionised the sport when he first penned his theories about hotspots on Fen drains and the effects of air pressure on pike fishing.

Medlar Press are tipped to publish the book next autumn.

Piking in the past

The internet can be a great place. Out of copyright publications can be read by anyone. Two ancient tomes that mention pike fishing are now available in cyberspace.

The first, A treatyse of fysshynge wyth an Angle by Dame Juliana Berners. was published in 1496 and is reputed to contain the first mention of deadbaiting for pike.

"Take a roche or a fresh hering, & a wyre with a hoke in the ende & put it in at the mouth, & on by the taile down by the ridge of the fresh herying, & than put your lyne of your hoke in after, and draw the hoke into the cheke of the fresh hering, than put a plumbe of lead vpon your lyne a yerde long from your hooke and a flote in mydway betwene, and cast it in a pyt where the pyke vse, and this is the best and moste surest craft to take the pyke. And three maner of taking him there is. Take a frosshe & put it on your hoke at the necke betweene the skin and the body, on the back half, & put on a flote a yerd there in, and cast it where the pike haunteth, & ye shall haue hym."

The second we have found is Izzac Walton's classic, The Compleat Angler. You can skip straight to the pike fishing chapter here.

"And for your dead-baits for a pike, for that you may be taught by one day's going a-fishing with me, or any other body that fishes for him; for the baiting your hook with a dead Gudgeon or a Roach, and moving it up and down the water, is too easy a thing to take up any time to direct you to do it: and yet, because I cut you short in that, I will commute for it by telling you that that was told me for a secret. It is this:

Dissolve gum of ivy in oil of spike, and therewith anoint your dead-bait for a pike; and then cast it into a likely place, and when it has lain in a short time at the bottom, draw it towards the top of the water and so up the stream: and it is more than likely that you have a pike follow with more than common eagerness."

Who said flavoured deadbaits were new?