Bats and ducks !!!

[Mark Leathwood]

I received a tackle catalogue through the post yesterday and see that Savage Gear have now produced a pike lure which imitates a bat ! It looks like a surface lure but, seriously ? I thought the duck imitating lure was a bit of craziness. Has anyone caught on one of these things ?

Just to be fair to Savage Gear the 'line through' trout are very seductive in the water and the roach, bream and perch all look to be just the ticket as well.

[olliesheridan]

I've got a couple of "Suicide ducks" but haven't had much luck with them. That being said there are plenty of youtube videos of people catching on duck, frog and rat lures (I haven't seen any for bats yet) as well as videos of pike taking ducklings. A friend of mine was tench fishing and saw a pike take a duckling so they definitely eat them!

I think that a lot of lures are there to catch the angler rather than the fish, and looking at the profane amount of money I've spent on lures I'm definitely a sucker for them...

As surface lures go I've not had any success with them, but its nice to have one on standby if you see pike activity close to the surface just to "give it a go".

I'm sure the bats will work - I've heard a lot of talk about the Savage Gear Rat Lures loosing their tails but I've not had any experience of this myself. The Suicide Duck does have a unique action to it with its "feet" but personally I won't be getting any bats.

The "line through" is good though. I would recommend throwing away the trace you get with that and putting a proper one on. I myself use ET 49 strand which I think is excellent and crimp (rather than twiddle/twist). I use a 24" trace as well. If you want a job done properly, do it yourself - making your own traces is a lot cheaper than buying ready-made and will give you a better result... in my opinion

[Michael Hastings]

Logically the Pike will only see the underside of a surface lure so what's on top would be irrelevant. Could be a duck, frog, mouse, bat, squirrel, crocodile, elephant pork pie or a baby otter.

[olliesheridan]

A baby otter? Where can I get one of those?

[Mark Leathwood]

As surface lures go I've not had any success with them, but its nice to have one on standby if you see pike activity close to the surface just to "give it a go".

I used to find that pike would sometimes follow a surface lure but not take it. I would always go to a lure fished just subsurface as this would often do the trick. The old Heddon Meadow Mouse was ideal as you could pull it subsurface. I don't know if you can get them anymore ?

[olliesheridan]

Not heard of that one, but I've been trying the SPRO BBZ-1 Rat... not that I caught anything today with it though

Thanks for the tip! They're always welcome

[Toby Cole]

Mark Houghton makes a mouse lure similar to the old heddon meadow mouse. He has a page on Facebook