Try launce as your pike bait!

ANGLER’S MAIL is number one for fishing tips and tricks. Here is another one from Andy Black.

Launce is another name for the greater sandeel, and it is normally used for sea fishing, but they are a great bait for pike, and they are often a bait that they haven’t seen before.

I find that they are best used in the largest size, if you can get hold of them, as sometimes they are in short supply. They are a long thin bait that resembles an eel, but has a completely different smell from eel sections.

I like to fish them in a way called ‘top and tailing’, in that I cut the head and the tail off and fish the body as a chunk, that way you get a good scent trail leaching from each end.

There is a downside to them though, in that sometimes you get less than perfect hook holds when using them.

I think this is because, being a slimline and relatively dense bait, pike find it hard to pick them up off the bottom. So it’s always worth popping them up with foam if you find this to be the case.

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