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Pike Fishing on the Adur| An article by Joe Raczkowski |
Although the River Adur is generally narrower and shallower than its neighbours the Arun and the Ouse, as far as pike fishing is concerned it ranks as one of the best. Many people are put off tackling the river for pike because of the tidal nature of the Adur through much of the Henfield Angling Society’s waters. But if you spend some time learning how to tackle the river, it can be very rewarding. I hope this article will be of some help.
 Over much of the tidal and semi-tidal stretches the depth of the river is fairly even at about 5ft, but with the odd deeper hole. At high tide however, it can be as much as 8 to 10 ft deep in the tidal section and 6 to 7ft in the semi-tidal stretches above the weirs at the Fork. On the smaller tides a simple paternoster rig can be used or, alternatively, a float-ledger rig using a 2oz lead. The lead size can be increased to 2˝oz when the tide is running at its strongest. Regardless of the rig you should always use a wire uptrace which is longer than your hook trace. This prevents the pike picking up the bait and snagging and possibly cutting your reel line.
My favourite baits are sardine and mackerel, fished on the bottom mid-river. I do fish the edges occasionally but prefer the middle as I find that the pike tend to become more active as the tide comes in and move to the middle of the river to feed.
Many anglers waste valuable time reeling in and moving their float to keep pace with the rising tide but this is not necessary – as long as you are using a drop-back indicator it doesn’t matter if your float is underwater. You must keep a close watch on your indicator to see when you get a take and strike fairly quickly so as not to deep-hook the fish.
 On very big tides or where there is a large amount of floating weed and rubbish being pushed up by the tide, I use what I call an “upside-down” paternoster rig. With this you can position your rod tip at the edge of the river as low as possible to the water and by using a back lead under the tip your line is kept well clear of any surface weed and rubbish. To convert the paternoster rig to a ledger rig simply remove the float. It is also a good idea on big tides or when there is floodwater in the river to fish the bends of the river with your bait positioned on the opposite side to the main flow. Alternatively, find a nice back eddy as pike often rest up in these areas out of the main flow.
The non-tidal stretches of the river at Wineham and the Lock are often ignored by pike anglers as these stretches are the narrowest on our waters. They are however worth a try as they contain a good head of double-figure fish. Standard paternoster or ledger rigs can be used.
A good way of locating the favourite feeding areas of pike is to walk the river, fishing with a wobbled sprat at low water. These areas can then be targeted with your paternoster or ledger tackle at a later stage. It can often be worth fishing the river at night as the bigger fish tend to feed after dark, especially if there has been a lot of pressure from anglers during the day. You can however be troubled by eels at night so avoid using the softer deadbaits.
Don’t forget that when fishing two rods the distance between the butts must not exceed 3 metres (this is an Environment Agency regulation) and you should use a minimum 15lb line, 18” wire trace and have a substantial 36” plus landing net. Pike must never be retained in keepnets and should be returned to the water as quickly as possible checking that they are fully recovered before allowing them to swim off.
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