Prebait

[Lee95]

Is it common for pike anglers to prebait up a swim on a lake the day before fishing.?
Or is it better to keep moving to find the pike.

[Will Smith]

I think that would depend on the lake.

Will

[Happy Hayes]

Hi Lee
If you tap prebait in the search box ( top right ) of page you should find a previous thread .
Prebait can work but make sure your not seen .
There’s nothing worse than finding someone in your swim .
Regards
Tom

[John Milford]

It would be a waste of time and money pre-baiting the waters I fish.

Too many anglers to have any certainty of a baited swim being unoccupied when I wanted to fish it!

(I'm sure I'm not alone, being in that situation).

If you have access to more exclusive fishing close to home (or work) it might be worth a punt though.

[suffolk si]

What John said, I prebaited my syndicate as not many people pike fish it plus I was trying to get the bloody fish to put on a bit of weight, it’s kinda worked. Contrary to that, a Couple of years ago I pre baited a local day ticket pit, lad caught a twenty out of the swim I’d baited , that was the fish I wanted but never caught!

[Lee95]

Thanks for the replys

[John Milford]

There is a small plus side to fishing 'popular' waters - and that is that a close-range bait dropped into the margins, while quietly setting up in a swim, can often produce an early fish.

That is courtesy of a previous occupant tossing their used or leftover baits into the water when they packed up . . .

[horseshoe3]

Try everything,

[bencarvosso]

There is a small plus side to fishing 'popular' waters - and that is that a close-range bait dropped into the margins, while quietly setting up in a swim, can often produce an early fish.

That is courtesy of a previous occupant tossing their used or leftover baits into the water when they packed up . . .

I used to fish a famous monaghan lake a couple of times a year. One of the swims had extensive shallows of 3 ft or so 50 yards out or so until you hit a ledge.
Quite often in the evenings you would see big pike coming into the shallows to mop up the baits guests would chuck in at the end of a session.

[ecko]

Pre baiting is not common in pike fishing, being the Hunter is the best approach in my fishing, therefore i fish mostly from a boat.
In the winter when temperatures drop and daylight is short and being in a boat al day is not favoured by my body anymore, then i seek the comfort of a bank to fish from.
For not wasting daylight i pre-bait earlier in the season sought after selected spots during a couple of days prior to fishing , i know the depth and structures of those spots and they are a good distance apart, maybee other sides of the main body of water or even completely other water. Most of the times my baits get taken between the instant they hit bottom and one hour after setling in. When the action stays out for to long i travel to the next spot. and hope to take one or a couple couple of fish from each different spot.
Pre-baiting for me is to speed things up. For bait recognition and confidence of the pike to take them on prommising swims.

I'm pretty sure the selected spots deliver fish to without pre-baiting eventually, but not as quickly.

Positive spinn off is you can travel light not needing a whole lot gear to sit multiple short sessions out...

[Mark Phillips]

It does work, but it's hard work... and you really want to be the only person on the water or conversely fishing a large water with very few pike anglers. I have mate who did incredibly well pre-baiting and fishing a complex of pits, but he was fishing up to five days' a week and it wasn't a venue that got much pike fishing pressure. So, under the right circumstances, you can bring the fish to you and hold them there - even increasing the weight of the fish through pre-baiting. In most instances, you're just wasting your bait.