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FEATURED ARTICLES Reinventing A Lost Art It’s a versatile, ultra natural and deadly effective method. It catches big fish where both dead baits and lures fail. So why is wobbling for pike such a forgotten art form? Dominic Garnett revisits and revamps this classic method. Clumsy, outdated rigs, general misunderstanding and catalogues full of flashy lures seem to have relegated the art of wobbling to dusty books, rusted hooks and Victorian gentlemen with daft surnames. Indeed, how many of us have even bothered to try, let alone persevere with the method? Why bother? Of course, you’ll never know until you give it a try, but wobbling offers distinct advantages. Firstly, it offers a completely natural presentation that can fool the wisest predator, even on a water that has been bombarded with all manner of lures. A wobbled natural bait can be worked tantalisingly at any depth, ultra slowly if necessary. This is especially useful in cold conditions and for those big, wily specimens that are rarely inclined to chase gaudy, fast moving pieces of plastic or metal. There is simply nothing for the pike to fear in a bait such as a roach; it looks right, gives off an attractive scent and the bait can even be left static for a following pike to pick up. In contrast to lure or fly fishing, you will find very few times when a following pike refuses to have a chomp! The penny really dropped for me when I beat personal bests on waters I had previously fished only with lures or static dead baits. It is a simple fact that many anglers are put off wobbling because the crude rigs used are just a recipe for frustration. The average, textbook wobbling rig is basically just a dead bait trace with the fish hooked the other way round. Bait losses are high and the action is stiff and unnatural. Most who try run out of patience (or bait!) pretty quickly. My own frustration with conventional rigs made me determined to find a better solution. Months of experimentation, and a kitchen table’s worth of all manner of hooks, weights, wire and paraphernalia finally gave rise to a simple solution. A Rig is Born! The breakthrough came from sabotaging a few items of carp tackle. By using a large bait clip to attach the dead bait through both lips, I found big advantages. The dead bait could be locked in place with great security, to the extent that the bait stayed put even when a pike had torn half the body off! Better still, attached this way, the bait had far better freedom of movement, and could wobble in any direction. The results spoke for themselves. The pike went ballistic for the seductive wobble, whilst I lost far fewer baits than before. In the months that followed my lures started to gather dust!
Making the Rig The rig, like most ideas that work, is pretty simple and fits onto an ordinary snap link on the end of a wire trace, making it fully interchangeable with lures.
The bait is attached by opening the clip and passing the spike well through both lips, or even through the head of a smaller fish such as a sprat. Close the device. Your dead bait is now firmly attached and will wobble freely with a lovely, loose action. The treble is fixed towards the tail. Just one treble, provided it is fairly big (usually size 4-6), seems to lose few fish. For a very large bait you could use two trebles, but I find that using just one picks up less weed and makes for easier unhooking and less damage to the pike; much better than those gruesome old traces with three sets of hooks!
Tackle Breakdown Tackle itself needn’t be over complicated and the emphasis should be on simplicity and mobility. Typical lure fishing tackle will suit most of your wobbling needs. It goes without saying that you must have a large net, decent unhooking tools and preferably an unhooking mat. Pike conservation should be a top priority for all of us. As for rod choice, I am not a fan of either spindly little spinning rods or beefy jerk bait rods. A reliable spinning rod, with power in the butt and a sensitive tip to impart life into the bait is ideal. A nine or ten foot model is the ideal length, giving better control over a fish where bank side snags exist. Couple this with a robust fixed spool or multiplier reel. My preference is for a Shimano, simply because they are dependable and have a smooth drag system. For the safe of safety, as well as performance, I prefer to use braided line of 30lb. When you hook that monster fish and it ploughs through half a ton of weed, you will understand my reasoning! Braid also offers superb bite detection and allows complete control of the bait even at distance. Wobbling baits The list of baits that can be used for wobbling is long: roach, rudd, perch, sprats, trout, smelt, whiting and scores of others all work. However my number choice is the humble roach, since not only are they durable, but form the staple diet of pike on so many venues and are therefore totally natural and will be taken by the wiliest of pike. Optimum size is a bait of four to six inches, in my opinion, which will cast well and be easily engulfed by most pike that swim. Bigger baits may be worth experimentation, but they come off more easily, require heavier tackle and seem clumsy by comparison. Contrary to popular myth, pike can easily be spooked by big, splashy baits, especially on shallow waters. A supply of bait for several sessions can be harvested with light tackle. Please remember to take baits from the water you are intending to fish. Despatch them humanely (I use a trout priest) and take them from areas where they are abundant. Of course, if that is too much fuss, blast frozen roach will work just as well. If roach are unavailable, then sprats, smelt and scad are all useful baits. Sprats are excellent value and make a good back up bait for when the roach run out. Wobbling from Scratch A wobbled bait can be fished in exactly the same areas you might work a lure. Being a visible method it requires some degree of water clarity, although the smell of the bait will help in murkier conditions. Cover of all kinds, such as reeds, bushes, weed beds and structures are ideal, as are areas rich in prey fish, underwater features and changes of depth; the shelf where deep water meets shallow is a deadly place on all kinds of water, especially canals. Unlike with lures however, you can work these areas as slowly and tantalizingly as you dare. You can jerk the bait high in the water, over sunken weed for example, or you can let it sink right to the bottom and trip it along the bottom at snail’s pace- brilliant for tough, winter conditions. You can even make the bait stop dead for a few moments, which is ideal for sluggish predators or when a reluctant fish follows but needs time to make its mind up. I have taken plenty of pike by leaving the bait static, which is thrilling stuff in clear water. Traditionally the wobbling action was created by putting a bend in the bait. You can try this to get a provocative, exaggerated movement, but with the new rig this is often unnecessary. I will not usually attach the tail treble on a tight pull, but leave some slack to let the bait wobble freely from the head- I also like the treble to pull out and into the pike easily on the strike. Getting a really deadly action with a wobbled bait is not rocket science, but takes practice and a little dexterity. You must think about what you are trying to achieve, -the impression of a dying, sickly or panicking prey fish. Time spent observing sick or distressed fish will give you the right idea, and I like my wobbled fish to look so diseased and cranky that biting its head off would be doing it a favour! Remember that this is not lure fishing. You do not need to constantly move your bait to convince your quarry that it is alive… you are using a real fish! Having said that, a dead roach has no in built action. However, you will find that even the slightest twitch of the rod tip or flick of the reel handle will give terrific gliding, darting and dying motions. Be imaginative, experimental and above all, don’t feel the need to rush. Far too many lure anglers crank their lures in at such speed that their lures never explore at depth or give those bigger, lazier pike the time to strike. In deeper water don’t be afraid to count your bait right down to the bottom and work it back gently to keep it deep. The Take Detecting and hitting takes when wobbling requires a different approach to lure fishing. Surprisingly few bites will be violent, smash and grab efforts and indeed, much of the time all you will feel is a pluck or tightening of the line. Sometimes the take will feel like weed or the bottom –until the bottom starts moving! At any indication you should react by dropping the rod tip to give a little slack line before giving a firm lift. Bait runner reels are great for allowing the fish a little line. Set your baitrunner to give line as easily as possible and simply click into free spool mode as soon as you suspect a take. The pike will run with a fish in the same way it would with a dead bait. However, there is no need to delay the strike, since we know the pike has the bait in its mouth, and striking after a count of three is plenty of time to connect with most pike without any risk of deep hooking. I usually strike quickly and find most of my fish really easy to unhook, meaning less need for excessive handling and time spent out of the water, which is beneficial for both pike and angler. Most thrilling of all is the experience of watching your quarry take. It is these clear water, up close and personal encounters that really set the pulse racing and teach you how a pike stalks and seizes its prey. Polarized glasses make a world of difference when observing pike, and I can never understand why so few anglers bother with them! Some variations on Wobbling The beauty of wobbling is its sheer versatility. If the pike are in a chasing mood you can employ a quicker, snappier retrieve. If they are lethargic and holding in deep water you can creep the bait along as slow and deep as you wish. The method can also be used in conjunction with deadbaits or lures. Indeed, the more you explore and experiment, the more success you will enjoy with this deadly, underused method. Some time ago wobbling was sometimes called “sink and draw” fishing. This meant simply letting the bait sink, then twitching it back, repeatedly. This somewhat dated term is helpful in describing the fluttering, stop-start action you are aiming for. When we are dealing with deep water or plummeting temperatures, this action can be taken to its slowest extreme. We can let the bait rest altogether on the bottom, before giving it odd tweaks to entice the pike. Our aim here is to give any interested fish all the time in the world to take the bait, remembering that bigger pike can be lazy brutes at times and are loath to chase their dinner over any great distance. Dead bait fishermen can also learn from this concept by giving static baits a regular twitch when the going is slow, which could make all the difference. Indeed, anyone who spends time stalking pike in clear water will soon realise how cagey they can be! One favourite trick that I learned from Irish pike anglers is to combine wobbling and dead baiting. Using two rods, one set up for each method, a static bait is cast out whilst another, wobbled bait is used to search surrounding water, each time bringing the wobbled fish past the dead bait. Sometimes the pike will respond to the moving bait best, whilst at other times the moving bait is not taken but will draw the pike to the dead bait, which presents an even easier meal and is promptly devoured. This can give the best of both methods and encourages the angler to stay alert and mobile. Lure fishermen too, can benefit from wobbling and the new rig allows a lure to be swapped for a wobbled bait in seconds. All lure fishermen are familiar with the problem of pike that follow but refuse to take. Wobbling can catch these fish and we can even deliberately set out to use lures as an attractor before picking off reluctant predators with real bait. I like to use out and out attractors, such as spinnerbaits, or vigorous, rattling lures to wake up the pike and bring them in. If they follow but won’t take, a slowly worked natural often gets an immediate response. Of course, you can also simply cast a natural bait near to a visible pike and leave it static. If your pike is just nosing the bait or lying close without taking, a quick twitch will often bring a take, perhaps because it prompts the pike to make its mind up before lunch swims away! Final Thoughts If you are already a“wobbler” then I hope my ideas have given you food for thought. For those yet to give it a shot, all I can say is you’ll never know what you’re missing until you try it! Take a good supply of bait, tie some rigs in advance and give it a serious trial, not half an hour when the going is slow. If your local venue is hard fished with standard tactics it could be a revelation. However, it will work on all kinds of waters and is ideal for winkling out bigger pike. Crap rigs are no longer an excuse, so what are you waiting for? Go forth and wobble! Featured Articles aaa Online Shop aaa Blog aaa Guiding aaa Profile aaa Links copy right 2008 © D G Fishing - Dominic Garnett, all rights reserved. |
