The effects of No-kill
The practice of No-Kill is as much a state of mind as it is absolutely necessary in this day and age, and this in order to preserve the fish resource which has been damaged by many factors (pollution, destruction of habitats, soil sealing, professional fishing, harvesting, etc.). The No-kill has nevertheless a limit, that of making the fish more and more wary and thus difficult to lure. Nevertheless, if they are more and more capricious, they remain instinctive and opportunistic predators. It is sometimes necessary to take advantage of this component. The basic strategy will be to get off the beaten track, to offer the fish new things. It could be the type of lure, its color, its size, its animation, etc.. Here are 5 tips to try to make the difference!
1) Fish big...or small
Here we are talking about playing on two extremes: a rather fine approach, which could be described as imitative, and an incentive approach characterized by the use of very large lures.
We will use indifferently soft and hard lures. I remember a session where I had touched only a few fish, and modest ones. At the very end, and in desperation, I decide to use a big swimbait. I got 3 nice fish in 20 minutes! If I had changed my approach earlier, I would have had time to refine it to certainly succeed in concretizing at least a touch. The fish followed, I had something, I just had to find the trigger! A color? A retrieve speed?
2) Fish fast and far
Here, it is more a question of playing with the lateral line of the fish than with their sight. Indeed, a pike is able to detect a potential prey, to evaluate its size even before having seen it. The principle will be to fish quickly, to practice what we call "reaction fishing" in order to provoke reflex attacks from the fish. You must not give the fish time to analyze its prey and discover the trickery.
This approach can be used with all types of lures, whether they are large or small (for example, you can fish quickly with the most realistic soft swimbait) but in the case of small lures, you can compensate for their small size by their ability to emit strong vibrations. Blades and lipless lures, to name but a few, are perfect for this exercise. We incite and we don't let you think!
Also, when you can only fish from the shore, being able to cast farther can be a differentiating factor, as fish are not used to being fished beyond a certain limit.
3) Create the surprise effect
I have experienced this situation on several occasions while fishing for pike on heavily fished waters and I remember an outing with my father where we quickly understood that the key was to change the lure very regularly.
Indeed, each time we changed the lure, the fish reacted quickly, a touch, transformed or not, then nothing. We then changed the lure and the pattern was repeated. Depending on the time of day, it was sometimes sufficient to change only one characteristic of the lure (the color for example), as it was essential to change the type of lure completely at other times. The idea is to change as often as possible, not to insist more than 15 minutes with the same lure. A rather unorthodox fishing scheme, I admit, but effective in certain situations!
4) Do not neglect surface lures
Considering the black-bass and the perch, it is true that pike is not the most inclined carnivorous to come to dig the surface. However, the effectiveness of fishing with surface lures is largely underestimated for the specific search of master Esox ... wrongly!
If the use of this category of lures will certainly be more productive in biotopes where pikes have a fairly high propensity to feed on the surface (of frogs in particular), due to the fact that it is underemployed, this one represents an atypical and new approach whatever the environment. Not to be neglected!
5) Try something new
Finally, what better way to introduce the fish to something they are not used to seeing than to fish with novelties? The Swimming Jig is in vogue and is a good way to combine discretion and novelty, and this is one example among many others, there is no lack of novelties! Surprise the fish!
