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Basic Trace Making
It
is probably true to say that one of the areas of pike fishing which seems
to cause the most difficulty to anglers new to the sport is the wire trace.
Let me say right away that a wire trace is absolutely essential for all
forms of pike fishing, ignorant people who spend more time talking about
pike fishing than actually fishing may say otherwise, but you only have
to look inside a pike’s mouth at all those sharp teeth the realize that
they will make very short work indeed of normal monofilament line.
Having
established that a trace is absolutely essential, let us now look at what
we need in order the make a standard bait fishing trace which would be
both safe and versatile in a wide variety of different situations. Nowadays
you can buy good quality traces, although these tend to be expensive in
comparison with those you can make yourself.
To
make a good quality trace you will need to buy the following:
TREBLE
HOOKS
Some
size 8 treble hooks. When buying treble hooks you will be faced with a
choice between semi barbless trebles or barbed trebles. As the name suggests,
semi barbless trebles have two points of the hook without barbs, on the
third point, however, there is a small barb. This barbed point is the one
intended to be placed in the bait, the other two barbless hook points are
the one which hook the pike. Being barbless these trebles will be easier
to unhook. However, critics argue that pike are able to shed these barbless
hooks much more easily leading to an increase in lost pike. For this reason
many experienced pike anglers still use fully barbed trebles, albeit ones
with very small ‘micro-barbs’.
Which
ones should you use? For novice and junior anglers I would tend to recommend
that you use semi-barbed trebles, if only for the fact that you will find
them easier to remove from the pike. When you become more experienced,
you may want to consider switching to micro-barbed trebles. Although if
you feel that you are not experiencing that many losses with semi barbed
trebles, you may want to carry on using them.
TRACE
WIRE
There
are many good brands of trace wire on the market nowadays. The trace wire
you buy should be of the braided type. Braided wire is made up of a number
of strands ( usually seven) of thinner wire, which as the name suggests,
has been braided together to form a wire that is both very supple and very
strong.
The
wire should be at least 20lb breaking strain, although most pike anglers
seem to prefer the extra security of 25lb breaking strain wire.
SWIVELS
A
good quality swivel is the only other component you will need for making
a very basic trace.
FORCEPS
This
may seem like a strange component with which to make a trace, but you should,
in fact, already have a pair of long (10 to 12inch) artery forceps for
unhooking pike, but these can also be made to perform a dual role of making
a basic trace. All will be revealed later on!
MAKING
A BASIC TRACE
Now
you have your trace making components the next stage is obviously to put
a basic trace together. For this you will need:
-
Two size
6 or 8 treble hooks
-
One swivel
-
A 16 to
20inch length of 25lb breaking strain braided wire.
To attach
one of the trebles to one end of the wire trace simply pass the wire through
the eye of the hook twice so that there is a length of trace wire sticking
out the other side. This is where the forceps come in to play. Securely
clip the forceps to the end of this short length of wire, and then swing
the forceps around the main length of wire, allowing the short end clipped
to the forceps to be twisted tightly around the main length of wire. Once
this has been done, you should have the first treble securely fixed to
the end of the trace. It is, however, important to thoroughly test this
twist to ensure it doesn't unravel when it is under pressure.
The next
stage is to add the second treble. This should be slid on the other end
of the wire and allowed to slide down until it is about 3 1/2 to 4 inches
from the end treble. There have been many ways of securely fixing this
second treble to the main line, but one of the simplest is is simply wrap
several turns of wire around the shank of the treble.
Now it
only remains to fix the swivel on the other end of the trace. This is done
in the same way as the end treble. Simply clip on the forceps to the trace
and swing it around so that the wire twists back upon itself. Again making
sure to thoroughly test the resulting twist to ensure that it will not
unravel under pressure.
As I said
at the start, there are many more complicated methods of making a pike
fishing trace, and there are many other types of trace for various sizes
of baits and methods. But this basic fourteen inch long two treble trace
will stand you in good stead in many, many pike fishing situations.
James
Holgate |
