Catching pike on unloaded rubber on a small river

With each new summer season I notice not the most favorable feature on my favorite river – the reservoir is covered with a lot of grass, because of which it becomes problematic to catch. That’s putting it mildly, because almost every throw brings instead of the desired trophy a bundle of grass. And here you do not want to want to look for a solution to this problem, and it is, and it is very simple, but at the same time the most effective. To help comes the tackle called unloaded rubber. So, about everything in a row.

Choice of offset hooks

If who has not yet fished for unloaded rubber or jig, then in brief I will say that in most cases when fishing in hard-to-reach places where a large number of hooks, use offset hooks, because the form of such a hook allows you to hide the sting of the hook directly in the body of the bait. In general, in terms of the choice of offset hooks, anglers can be divided into two camps – those who use inexpensive hooks, because of the constant snags, respectively because of the inevitable breaks, and those who use not the most budgetary offset hooks. Here it all depends on the conditions of fishing, if there are a lot of hooks, then catching on expensive offset hooks is very costly. On my example I will say that on the river, where I catch, there are no driftwood, mostly grass. Yes, if there is a snag, then because of the shallow river to the snag is safe to get to, so I try not to save on the offset and use sharp and already proven not one season hooks from the Japanese company Varivas series Hooking Master Light Class and more powerful Hooking Master Heavy Wide. Hooks are similar, the difference is in the thickness of the wire. Accordingly, I use hooks of these series with different silicone baits, namely Light Class (light class) with soft “rubber” up to three inches (7 cm) and Heavy Wide (heavy, wide) with large rubber from three inches and more. If we talk about baits, then let’s go directly to them.

Choice of baits

Slugs, twisters, vibro-tails – all these types of silicone baits are perfect for fishing with unloaded rubber. But due to the active and expressive game, wibro-tail is considered the most winning bait among the others, including me. Noticed such a feature that in most cases, based on personal experience, white color shows the best results when catching pike. Therefore, most of the silicone baits in my arsenal are light shades, but this does not mean that other colors are “silent”. Not at all. It is necessary to have and acidic shades, for example, when fishing in cloudy weather, and when the pike is passive, and bright colors provoke it to bite. Of the variety of silicone baits I can confidently recommend the following inexpensive but proven vibrotails, which I often catch: Akkoi Diplomat, Lucky John S-Shad Tail, Lucky John Tioga, Kosadaka Easy Shiner.

A big piece and the mouth is happy, but as practice shows, the saying on small rivers is not quite correct. The pike is an amazing predator and does not always bite on large bait sizes. On one fishing trip it prefers 2-inch, and on the next give 4-inch rubber, so it is desirable to have a different size baits and more often experiment directly in the process of fishing. Below is a table, which (it all depends on the shape of the hook and its manufacturer) to pick up the optimal size of the offset hook under the pike dimensions of silicone rubber when fishing on a small river.

Choosing a braided cord

These days, most anglers prefer braided cords over monofilament or flurocarbon lines, so this is the cord we will be talking about. The choice of braided cord is an important factor and should have certain characteristics, because fishing on a heavily overgrown river is difficult and requires from the cord some and not unimportant characteristics. The first thing to consider is which cord to choose, a four-strand or an eight-strand cord. Certainly four-core. I had a bitter but instructive experience of fishing on 8-strand braids. Bitter in the sense that such braids did not last a season, because “eight-strand” are afraid of abrasive and quickly come to disrepair. Especially with constant contact with grass and other abrasive, as the threads from which the cord is woven, thinner than the “cheryrehzhilok”, respectively, and torn such a thread is easier. Yes, 8-strand cords are more sensitive, but in fishing for unloaded rubber sensitivity is not the most important criterion in choosing it, here the main thing is abrasion resistance and reliability, because the pike often have to drag through all the grass and the strength of the cord comes to the forefront.

With the thickness of the cord does not need to be shallow, I do not advise you to go below 1.0 PE ( 0.17 mm) in the Japanese classification, and better and even use 1.5 PE (0.2-0.21 mm), with such a diameter of cord is not so terrible grass, and at the bite of the trophy “toothy”, the power of “one and a half” enough that it would not give it to go into the thickets of grass, and thus without any problems to force disemboweling. Unwinding on small rivers is enough and 100 meters, because the range of throwing is not as important as accuracy. I usually throw rarely reaches and twenty meters, often all the fishing is on the short. If we start from inexpensive models of cords, I can recommend the budget firm Akkoi and their series of cords Mask Ultra X4 in diameter 0.18 mm, although in practice the cord is obviously thicker, and by all parameters perfectly fits into the conditions of fishing.

Spinning

For fishing in difficult conditions you need a proven and quite powerful spinning, which should not let you down on the forced fishing. First of all, you need to pay attention to the class of spinning. I repeat that an easy walk along the shore will not work, and each pike bite is a test of the whole tackle as a whole and separately spinning. I would recommend to pay attention to Medium Light or Medium class. Such rods have a reserve of power in the stem, which allows you to force fishing through all the thickets of grass without fear for spinning. At the same time the test on baits at such sticks grams to 20-25 grams, which in principle allows you to make good throws. In that season for these purposes bought a spinning Maximus Manic 20L in the test up to 16 grams, in practice, the spinning was much more powerful. The stick is perfectly suited to these fishing conditions – power reserve in the stem, good throwing and length of two meters is optimal for fishing on small rivers. Although the range of throwing, of course, is not great, because one vibrotail weighs little, and spinning medium class to work with such weights are not designed. But to increase the throwing range, you can weight the offset hook with a light chuburashka to three grams, or buy special weighted offset hooks.

Fishing conditions

I will not mark any restrictions and certain conditions in fishing for unloaded rubber. Since you can throw it where the soul of the fisherman wishes, even in the wilds of grass, and there this equipment will work, if the predator is in such places, and it is there unambiguously, especially in the hot days, hiding from the scorching sun. Do not pass by the “window” of clear water among the thickets of grass, even if it is a meter by a meter, it is in such places is often hidden pike. I can for a few hours of fishing do not put neither wobblers, nor blades, because unloaded rubber – it is at first glance a very simple solution, but it has significant advantages, namely: nibbles on it a lot, high passability, where other baits out of competition, fantasy in animation, budget in the case of breakage. In general, the advantages of the snap is enough to try it in business.

Bottom line

At the end we can only add that fishing for unloaded rubber is a very exciting and emotional process. Catch often has to be in shallow areas of the river, so furious pike nibbles occur before your eyes, and from this even more desire to catch on this snap. It should be understood that the effectiveness of nibbles is not high, because the hook, to avoid constant snags, must be hidden in the body of the bait, therefore, and the hooking is inferior to other equipment. Personally, I do not worry about pike failures, all this is compensated by unforgettable nibbles “toothy”, which can attack the bait several times during only one wiring.