The Pike Textbook: 1001 Pike Fishing Facts and Tips

The idea of this book was first conceived over ten years ago and shortly after my retirement from academic circles ,a brief framework was put together while holidaying in Thailand. On my return from Thailand I put some “meat on the bones”. A year or so later I was very fortunate to become the piking partner for a number of years of Phil Wakeford, one of the most respected and successful pike anglers in England who initially collaborated on the project but who went on to bigger and better solo ventures such as Pike Here and There (2012),co-editing PAC30 (2007) and making contributions to Ultimate Pike (2000).The original title of this book was “1001 Pike Fishing Facts and Tips” and was in no way, shape or form plagueurised from John Wilson’s excellent book 1001 Top Angling Tips as my idea was borne many years before the publication his book.There is a rich plethora of old and new pike books out there but the more modern books contain up-to-date, state of the art information and techniques compared to many of the earlier works of the fifties, sixties and seventies which mention barbarous practices such as using gaffs and gags.It was perhaps Neville Fickling’s book which set the British piking scene alive with his much revered book Piking in the 80’s.I remember buying this book and thinking how modern and trendy it was. Since then there have been a couple of excellent books which have undoubtedly helped to teach the craft of pike fishing such as the Fox Guide to Modern Pike Fishing and the spectacular Pike Fishing beyond 2000 produced by the Pike Angler’s Club of Great Britain.From all of the pike books which I have read, the couple of novice books still remain amongst my favourites are An Introduction to Pike Fishing by David Batten and The Pike Anglers Manual written by the late Barrie Rickards and these very much influenced the writing of this book.Well what does this book actually contain you may well ask yourself? And surely it can add nothing new to the existent pike fishing arena?Primarily this book is a cross between a large number of books and has the feel of a textbook and a piking encyclopedia, modesty of course prevented me from calling it The Pike Angler’s Bible but at the same time, I hope that it contains something of interest to both the novice and expert alike: and your prayers are answered with the capture of a lifetime! There will no doubt be attempts by experienced pike anglers to critisise this work and disagree with some of the points made in this book. Well so what ?If an author was frightened of passing on any information that would be open to question and in severe cases ridicule, well nothing would ever be written and nothing would be passed on to future generations.If the contents of this book help to save the life of one specimen pike or encourage one person to pursue the rewarding hobby of pike fishing or has been instrumental in the development of one fishing friendship with a fellow pike angler ,then it is a job well done.The book is set out in 23 chapters each of which has been fully integrated into a Table of Contents found out at the front of the book and so finding information should be a relatively quick process and painless process.Each of these chapters has been broken down into a logical, stepwise series of facts and tips which were designed with a text book type of format. Speaking of which, this book is not plastered with pictures of pike captures but it does contain a series of diagrams used to illustrate all of the rigs and some of the tips described in the text.A fully illustrated version of this book containing over 300 photographs, The Illustrated Pike Text Book, is in preparation.