What's the chances ?

[Bird]

Perhaps a question without an answer. 

 

Had a large Pike rip off a Jerkbait right beside the boat today, water was clear and this 3 trebled bait had his face. 

 

What's the chances of this Pike or any fish for that matter to shake it off.

I've never felt good about leaving hooks in fish but mostly deal with gut hooked. 

[Sam]

Extremely strong probability that the pike will shake off or drag off the jerkbait.

 

I have caught bass and redfish with hooks in their mouths and the fish showed no affects of having the hooks in their mouths.

 

Good question.  Looking forward to reading additional answers.

 

 

[WRB]

If the lure pinned the mouth closed the fish is in trouble.

Pike and Musky have a habit of following lures until the angler lifts the lure out of the water.  The Pike or Musky then glide under the boat and wait for the lure to come back to the boat and stikke it with a few feet of line from the rod tip.

Tom

[TnRiver46]

You have pike in VA??

[WRB]

30 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

You have pike in VA??

Virginia Northern Pike record 31 lb 4 oz.

[Bird]

53 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

You have pike in VA??

It looked like one and acted like one. Lol

Stocked of course. 

[Bird]

1 hour ago, WRB said:

If the lure pinned the mouth closed the fish is in trouble.

Pike and Musky have a habit of following lures until the angler lifts the lure out of the water.  The Pike or Musky then glide under the boat and wait for the lure to come back to the boat and stikke it with a few feet of line from the rod tip.

Tom

It actually did as you describe.

Unfortunately when the fish hesitated in the clear water, I could see the bait positioned vertically on exterior of mouth.....dangit.

[WRB]

Maybe the Pike will get the hooks struck into something and rip them loose.

Being a bass angler from the west coast where we don't have Pike or Musky my learning curve started when fishing Lake Of The Woods Ontario Canada with my inlaws. Bass will follow a lure until it sees the boat and turns around swimming away. I watched big Muskies following the lure and staying under the boat. One big Musky actually turned and started to bite the trolling motor prop! My inlaws warned me that both Pike and Musky will wait for the lure to return and to hold my rod tightly when they strike next the boat, very exciting behavior!

Lets hope the Pike gets rid of the lure.

Tom

[Way north bass guy]

I read an article about a year ago or so from I think In-Fisherman, about just such a study done on pike being hooked and broke off. Can’t remember where the study was done, but they basically purposely hooked pike in certain parts of the mouth with treble hooked lures, and released them in a large pond ( I think that’s where the pike came from in the first place). It seemed that after a few days almost every fish was able to either shake the lure loose or rip it off on a branch or weeds, and some just kept it on like jewelry and kept on feeding like it wasn’t even there. 

[flyfisher]

2 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

You have pike in VA??

There aren't a lot of places with them but they are here.  Now their little cousin the chain pickerel are everywhere and provide some good action and act just like their bigger relatives.

[Bird]

I live in a more predominate area for introduction of these fish.

Deep clear mountain lakes in western part of VA.

Starting to see more signs at the ramps about their introduction. 

Thanks.

[MIbassyaker]

3 hours ago, Way north bass guy said:

I read an article about a year ago or so from I think In-Fisherman, about just such a study done on pike being hooked and broke off. Can’t remember where the study was done, but they basically purposely hooked pike in certain parts of the mouth with treble hooked lures, and released them in a large pond ( I think that’s where the pike came from in the first place). It seemed that after a few days almost every fish was able to either shake the lure loose or rip it off on a branch or weeds, and some just kept it on like jewelry and kept on feeding like it wasn’t even there. 

 

Yeah, I remember seeing this too.

[12poundbass]

One year when we lived on the lake we’re on now, I bought the wife a pink rod and reel combo from Cabelas for her birthday. We went out that morning fishing of course. She had on her Signature Senko, she has a bass on and was reeling it in and a giant pike came up and took everything, four feet from the boat. Needless to say it put a major damper on the morning. Lol

 

They take everything! 

[Bluebasser86]

Probably already has it out. I saw the same study as @Way north bass guy and the pike seemed to have no issues freeing themselves of the hooks even ones that were placed deeply in their mouths.

[Smells like fish]

I've wondered the same. I've had musky take whopper plopper and balsa stickbaits from me when I'm targeting bass. I always thought it was the death sentence for them but you never know. Our musky here tend to fancy $15 and up lures lol. I did see a musky about 35-40" take a 2.5" balsa stickbait with 2 #8 hooks. You know he had to practically swallow it on the take. My buddy set the hook and his 6 pound line lasted less than 10 seconds. Interesting to note that while wading I found a big multi willow leaf spinner bait laying in a couple feet of water with approx 50# braid cut off with about 2" remaining. I'd bet that had been Mr. Musky at work... Mr Pike is employed there too...

[MGF]

5 or 6 times/season I have a pike take the lure and just cut my line as clean as can be. I'll see the line jump, feel little or nothing and it's cut as clean as if done with a razor. I've lost so many expensive jerk baits and crank baits that I hesitate to use them in "my" river anymore. I lose some jigs and worms to pike also but not as many and they're less expensive. I've tried using bite-proof leaders but then it seems like I just don't get any bites at all.

[Bigassbass]

Falls Lake out of Durham, N.C. has them I've caught lots of med size ones fishing for crappies on minnows.

[geo g]

I have hooked fish with trebles and had them break off .  Seconds later you will see them go airborne shaking their head violently trying to shake the hooks .  Sometimes it works sometimes not.

 

  I have caught bass with a rattletrap hooked outside the jaw.  I landed it and got a nice rattletrap in the mix.

 

One time a broke off a bass with a deep diving crankbait with loud rattles.  An hour later and 100 yards down the canal found my Bill Dance crank floating along a pad field in the same canal.  Sometimes your just lucky.

 

Another time I broke off a bass with a Fluke and #4 Gama hook.  An hour later I doubled back and to my amazement caught the same bass with my old fluke and Gama #4 hook in the side of the mouth.  This bass was still willing to eat with the hook lodged solidly in the mouth.  Another luck day.

 

If you fish long enough strange things will happen.

[Ogandrews]

I very rarely get bite offs when throwing jerkbaits with a light leader. I guess the only time I use a 10-12lbs floro leader instead of 15lbs titanium is when I am fishing smallmouth in late spring and early summer, never really get pike in those spots I’m fishing. The coolest bite off i have ever had was when I was fishing a topwater walking bait over a weed flat and a low 40’s musky hit the bait and jumped a good 2-3 feet out of the water, line was bit off before he even hit the water and I could think about setting the hook. I don’t worry a huge amount about getting bit off, i guess I’m just lucky but if I can get a hook set without it breaking I can usually play them soft enough to land them.

 

One other thing I wanted talk about is you guys talking about musky/pike following the bait. Both species will follow a bait but pike most of the time won’t stick around the boat nearly as much as musky. I honestly think that muskies like your boat because it gives them something to pin the bait against. I have had musky follow me around on a figure 8 for over 10 full rotations before. There isn’t anything cooler in freshwater fishing in my opinion than having a 50+ inch fish follow an inch behind your bait while you are making a giant 8 next to your boat and then eating it, if you haven’t experienced it you should really try to do it at some point.

[the reel ess]

Given how often fish shake my treble lures before I bring them to hand, I's say very good. have you ever noticed how often, when you land a fish on trebles, the hooks move in and around the fish's mouth?

[schplurg]

On 3/24/2020 at 12:56 PM, geo g said:

I have hooked fish with trebles and had them break off .  Seconds later you will see them go airborne shaking their head violently trying to shake the hooks .  Sometimes it works sometimes not.

 

  I have caught bass with a rattletrap hooked outside the jaw.  I landed it and got a nice rattletrap in the mix.

 

One time a broke off a bass with a deep diving crankbait with loud rattles.  An hour later and 100 yards down the canal found my Bill Dance crank floating along a pad field in the same canal.  Sometimes your just lucky.

 

Another time I broke off a bass with a Fluke and #4 Gama hook.  An hour later I doubled back and to my amazement caught the same bass with my old fluke and Gama #4 hook in the side of the mouth.  This bass was still willing to eat with the hook lodged solidly in the mouth.  Another luck day.

 

If you fish long enough strange things will happen.

 

I broke off a 4/0 EWG on a Striper from shore. Caught it again later and got my hook back. San Joaquin River near the Delta.

[Cdn Angler]

Biologists at the local university did a study where they electroshocked pike, tagged them and put a hook in their mouth. About a week later they found them and electroshocked them to see if the hook was still there. It was something like 1 or 2 out of 20, a low number anyways, that still had the hook. 

 

I can't remember exactly what type of hook or how long they waited to check, but I remember being pleasantly surprised.