BOAT FISHING

 

I would not go so far as to say boat fishing is becoming more popular, rather it is becoming essential on a lot of waters particularly the stocked trout waters. My idea of bliss is sitting on the bank behind a brolly laughing at the rain and wind. Sitting in an open boat with a North wind and driving rain is enough to make me give up pike fishing! 

 

So I am going soft. I know this and for all you younger folks out there you have to sometimes suffer for your pike.  I have caught pike with winter chill factors of minus 10 c and actually enjoyed it. I have slept out in boats. However these days I prefer a bit of comfort and with suitable planning there is no reason why everyone should have just that.

 

Boat angling is carried out in two ways. You own your own boat or you hire one. Most trout water pike events are conducted in hire boats. The boats are invariably traditional lough boats with three seats too many for most pike anglers. Rutland water stands out as one water where the boats are much better.  We are gradually seeing some of the other trout waters looking at replacing the old boats with the Coulam 16 footer. Pike anglers take a lot more gear than most trout anglers and dare I say it some pike anglers are a bit big so space is always going to be a problem. You need to keep clear one area where you are going to deal with any pike you are lucky to catch. Some people use a sling which sits across the boat and these are pretty good but then again it’s another piece of gear that can slow you down if a racing start is required! I know some pike anglers who are always first in the queue and always out on the water before everyone else. If the water in question has very specific areas that you need to get to then getting out quick is essential. There is also the situation where a pike or two can be landed and returned before the hordes descend on you. .

The alternative to the sling type device is a well-padded mat which fills up the whole central space of a hire boat. We are starting to see some mats with walls which provided a pike will fit in them must be worth a look. Pike tend to wander around on matts if given chance.

 

You do not need boat rod rests but they can help on the smaller trout water boats. When fishing Chew my mate Dave fishes off the sides of the boat and uses the boat rod rests our shop sells. They are smaller and less cumbersome than some of the ones you see. I sit at the stern and both my rods point away from the boat as far away from his rods as possible. I do not need boat rests to do this.

 

Front anchors are sometimes supplied but often they are not very good so we sometimes take our own. Most Chew anchors are OK but we take a sash cord weight if it looks like being windy and we tie that above the anchor itself.   This helps the anchor grip.  Back anchors are rarely provided and we take our own. About 5kg. Remember you sometimes have to carry everything a long way!

 

Anchor ropes are quality braided nylon often ex climbing ropes.  If a fish should get around a back anchor your braid will not dig into these types of rope.

 

One other thing auto inflate life preservers. Read the whole of the next  sentence please. The main consideration when you are boat fishing is to NOT fall out of the boat.  Seems obvious I know. A life preserver is there when you make a mistake which is the only way you are going to end up in the water. Most hire boats on trout waters are fairly forgiving but if you take liberties there is a chance of something going wrong. For example two very big chaps decide to both lean over the same side of the boat. Oh dear! You run over your front anchor while helping your mate to get the anchor unstuck. Your boat is immediately facing stern into the wind. In a big wind you will take in water and once you have a foot of water in almost any boat it becomes unstable. You should always have a sharp knife handy to cut the anchor rope. Getting it unwrapped from the prop may be beyond you.  On most trout waters you are always in sight of other boats so you are unlikely to have serious problems.

 

An auto inflate keeps your head above the water provided you use the crotch strap provided!  Mobile phones in waterproof clear bags are useful as well.  Finally loading and stepping into the boat off a jetty is a point of risk. Where possible I try to get the boat sideways on to the jetty even tying it off. A friend of mine did what I have done many times walked into the boat with a heavy rucksack on his back. Somehow he slipped and ended up on the water side of the boat hanging on to the side of the boat. If the combined weight of his body and his rucksack had been more than the life preserver could support he could have plummeted to the bottom in 12 foot of water. I shudder to think about it so I will not be walking into boats anymore!

 

Hire boats because of the lack of space are in some ways more risky than your own boat which hopefully is a much larger and better laid out affair. Owning a decent boat can be an expensive affair. I started with an 8 foot boat then a nine footer then a 13 foot boat. I could not afford to take my own advice and that is always buy the biggest boat you can! So over the years I have worked up to a 14 foot Sea Nympth for my local fishing and a 17 foot Wilson Flyer that I keep in Ireland.  Two boats is why I never have any money. A bigger boat is safer than a smaller boat on a big water and until you have had a wet yourself experience which we all get to have eventually you might need convincing. Owning your own boat means you can tailor it to suit your style of fishing. I do a lot of static fishing, a bit of trolling and a bit of casting. I favour a boat with a cabin or a cuddy that way I can survive proper winter fishing.  Many lure anglers disappear in the winter and open boats are fine for what they do.  Both my boats have Scotty rod holders which are the best I have found.

 

Buy the biggest and the newest engine you can afford that fits your particular boat. That is unless you are mechanically minded then older motors are OK.  The Sea Nympth is not actually rated for a 25 but it runs OK with one. The Wilson Flyer is somewhat under powered with a 40 hp but 22 to 24 mph is ample for what I do.

 

Trailers and winches are the weak point of any boat rig. A trailer has to be rated for the weight it is supposed to carry and you may need a braked trailer with a big boat. Wheel bearings, I can never understand how you can paddle in a car and bearings never fail but boat bearings never seem to last for more than three years. I always try to buy good quality British bearings rather than cheap Chinese ones.  An electric winch is a huge advantage with a big boat while hand cranked winches are fine even with a 16 foot aluminum boat.  Rollers that the boat rests on are better than bunks which means you have to float the boat off for launching. Rollers you just push and away it goes. By the way I have seen people launch boats without tying them to something. Better still forgetting to put the bung in is a favourite trick.

In some countries such as Holland you have to have a certificate to prove that you are competent to use an engine over 15 hp. That means gong on a RNYC training day.  Powerful engines used badly can be dangerous. Boats with console control generally have enough resistance in the control cable to allow you  to take your hands off the steering wheel. (Please do not do this until you have tested it on your boat!) Tiller driven boats where you sit at the back of the boat have to be treated with respect. Going at high speed you cannot let go of the handle. The torque generated by the prop will swing the engine over to one side. This is one reason you should always attach the kill cord to your wrist. If anything happens to you it kills the engine and instead of the boat circling while you are possibly bobbing in the water the boat remains nearby.

 

I am not going to go into too much details about type of hulls. On small waters most boats will be displacement hulls with say a 5 hp motor and you will chug along at about 6 mph. Planeing hulls with a big engine skim over the water rather than through it. What speed you go at depends on the size of the boat and size of the engine. I have travelled at 70 mph in Canada and frankly it was a bit scary. No seat belts in boats!

 

In Holland and Germany everyone has fantastic boats with 100 hp engines and trailers to die for. We in the UK are very limited in where we can use boats like those. As a nation we are not as wealthy as the Dutch and Germans either so most boats you see in the UK are modest compared with our European friends.

Most people with the larger boats will have a backup engine usually something about 3 hp to get you home should your main engine fail.  Fairly new and well maintained engines do not fail normally but there is always the first time. Now if you think you have spent enough already wait until you get onto sonar and the iPilot!

 

Sonar is essential and most of us have managed using pretty standard colour LCD screens for years. They show depth the hardness of the lake bed, snags, weed and fish. The lower end range sonars are not very good at picking up single fish and even when you do you have no idea as to what it is. Large shoals of food fish show up brilliantly. Basic models just do down scan. You can then get models that can scan to the side of the boat. Generally the £500 to £800 units struggle to show much on side scan.  To really see larger fish such as pike you need to move up to larger 10 to 11 inch screens and packages that cost a couple of thousand pounds. The ultimate sonar are the active or live scan which can show the fish swimming around and sometimes which species of fish it is.  I have one of these units because I am competing with people who have them and they can present baits to pike while I am still using watercraft which does not always work. Personally I think the worlds gone mad, we used to be able to catch pike without the advanced technology. Now the pike can never really escape. True they still have to take a bait but in the end I think this will be bad for the pike. I fear that I am like John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness.  No-one will be listening!

 

IPilots are a different matter. Pulling in anchors on a cold day is the least enjoyable aspect of boat fishing. Setting them also takes time and in winter the days are very short.  An iPilot is an electric motor which is GPS equipped and can keep you in one position all day. If you want to move unlock move 100 yards and spot lock.  It only fails to work on flat calm days then you need a fairly light back anchor. Flat calms are rare most of the time.  To fit an ipilot on a hire boat you need a bracket with a quick release plate. You have to make the bracket yourself.  If you have your own boat you will need a quick release plate permanently mounted on it.  I can see boat anglers getting evicted because they could not pay the rent or mortgage!!!

 

It is quite possible to eliminate anchors altogether.  Of course you need battery power to do this and that means a 100 amph Lithium phosphate battery. There goes another £300.

 

In the end it is only money which is OK if you have plenty. Boat fishing allows you to reach places that bank anglers cannot get to. It is essential on most trout waters. In the next issue I will go into a bit more detail about actually catching pike.