Winter before last was the season that broke my confidence in deadbaiting, and then rebuilt it completely differently.
I’d fished dead baits the same way for over a decade: cast out, sit behind two rods, wait for a run. It had always produced. That winter, on the Broads waters I know best, it produced almost nothing for six straight sessions. I know those pike are there – I’ve caught them before and since – so something in my approach had stopped working.
What changed things was, almost by accident, fishing far more actively. Recasting every 45 minutes rather than every two hours. Moving swims after 90 minutes without a take instead of sitting it out for a full session. Treating deadbaiting less like a static, sit-and-wait method and more like searching water the way I would with a lure.
The takes started coming back almost immediately. My theory, for what it’s worth, is that on hard-fished waters pike become conditioned to a static bait sitting in one place for hours – it stops looking like an easy meal and starts looking like exactly what it is. A bait that’s been recast into a slightly different spot every 45 minutes presents fresh each time.
I still deadbait. But I fish it far more like an active method now, and it’s the single biggest change I’ve made to my winter pike fishing in years.
Rob Hadley grew up fishing the rivers and drains of the Norfolk Broads, and it was inevitable that pike would become his species of choice. He’s been targeting predators seriously for over 20 years – starting on dead baits, moving through live bait rigs, and eventually landing on lure fishing as his preferred method about eight years ago.
These days he fishes the Broads through winter, travels to Chew Valley Lake each spring for its outsized fish, and spends the warmer months working soft plastics on rivers across the East Midlands for perch and zander. He’s had pike to 31lb and perch to 3lb 9oz, and reckons both records are beatable on the right day with the right set-up.
At The River Bend, Rob writes the predator species guides, lure fishing technique articles, and most of the winter fishing content.
Covers: Pike, perch, zander, lure fishing, winter fishing, predator rigs