The history of pike fishing with artificial lures begins with hard baits.
The first metal spoons date back thousands of years; the first spinners were invented in the second half of the 1800s, and the first minnows, the famous Rapalas, date back to the early 1900s. To this day, hard baits remain the most common lures for pike fishing, encompassing a multitude of types of lures, some quite different from one another, including spoons, spinners, spinnerbaits, minnows, crankbaits, jerkbaits, etc.
Our beloved pike is not an easy catch. While it may attack almost anything passing by within its activity windows, when it decides to keep its mouth shut, the situation can become quite complicated.
Often during moments of apathy (which can last entire days!), anglers start rapidly switching from one artificial lure to another.
A Replicant for a couple of casts, then a Jerkbait for a couple more, followed by a spoon, and so on, until delving into the deepest recesses of our tackle bag for those forgotten lures with which we've never caught a fish and for some strange reason hope they might save the fishing day.These moments of stagnation often coincide with various negative activation variables: high pressure, sunshine, lack of wind, etc.
During these times, I prefer to use a reaction bait, a hard bait capable of stimulating even the most apathetic pike. There are many types of these baits, and they are effective year-round, making them essential in the tackle bag of any respectable pike angler.
The first lures we'll analyze are crankbaits and minnows of generous size and weight, large sinking lipless baits (there are also floating types for shallow waters), and the beloved jerkbaits.I won't delve too deeply into the topic of color selection, as opposed to what often happens in bass fishing, in pike fishing, the color of the lure isn't dictated by established rules but rather by the pike's preference at that specific moment, in that precise spot, and under those temporary conditions.
I always carry a wide range of lures in various colors, as the performance differences between colors (when there are any) are highly variable and influenced by numerous unpredictable variables.
Furthermore, it's worth noting that in 70-80% of cases, the lure's color should please the angler more than the pike. The lure of that specific color, the one we believe in the most and feel most inspired by, is the one we'll fish with the most time, with greater emphasis and confidence, and it will be the one that automatically yields more catches. Conversely, it's less common for pike to feed exclusively on a specific color, ignoring all others.
Spoons
During my fishing outings, there almost always comes a moment to attach a nice spoon to the terminal snap. It's a lure to which I am particularly attached because, during the 1980s, it was by far the lure I used the most during my early pike outings with my father.
At the time, they weighed 20 grams and had a red ribbon on the treble hook; the ones I use now weigh at least twice as much and are 20 cm long! (My favorites are the 60g Toby Magnum and 35g Atom by Abu Garcia, among the very few that work well even on the descent).
The spoon is a very versatile lure and lends itself to multiple uses. It can be retrieved linearly, brought to life with rod taps and variations in retrieval speed, "jerked," and after casting near hotspots, it can work well even on the descent.
The contact with the lure is slightly lost, so one must stay focused and ready to set the hook firmly at the slightest touch.
Rotating Spoons
Another lure tied to old memories is the rotating spoon.
At the time, most of the catches were made with my "Martin Pike" weighing 20 and 28 grams with a red ribbon, a lure that, although extremely effective, did not offer much size selection.
Today there are specific spinners for large and very heavy pike, even capable of "holding the bottom" reasonably well in waters up to 3 or 4 meters deep, like the 50g Svartzonker, double-bladed spinners equipped with large synthetic skirts that considerably increase their volume. These are lures that I use as a last resort when other baits don't pay off, to try to stimulate the fish differently. Today "Panther Martin" produces a wide variety of spinners for pike, including large-sized ones, always as effective as before!
Spinnerbaits
A category of lures similar to spinners but much more contemporary is that of Spinnerbaits.
Originally born for bass fishing, it has recently been readapted for pike fishing.
The pike Spinnerbait is a large metal lure, equipped with one or two rotating blades and a silicone trailer or synthetic skirt. It is a reaction lure that supports multiple retrieval techniques and attracts pike's attention well, thanks to the enormous amount of vibrations it emits.
One of the most appreciated features of Spinnerbaits is their great anti-snag capacity, which allows us to work them inside large weed beds and among logs and structures, where it would be unthinkable to reach with other types of lures.
It is a very effective lure and in larger sizes, it can provide respectable catches.

Adriano Marini

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