Hooking A Deadbait
Predators swallow baits headfirst. With this in mind the correct way to hook one when fishing a deadbait static on the bottom is so that the trebles do not interfere with the fish taking the bait in its mouth and that when you strike the hook points connect directly.

This means having the top treble in the tail and the bottom treble further down the flank of the fish.

The tail root is tough and on all but the most fragile species with a hook in there you can punch your bait out some distance without it coming off.

A correctly hook deadbait.

The top treble goes into the tail root. With semi-barbed trebles it’s the barbed hook that goes into the deadbait.

Position the lower treble along the flank of the fish, with the wire between the two trebles tight.

A correctly hooked deadbait should look something like this, easy to swallow headfirst.

Hooking For Sink And Draw
With this method you, the angler, are imparting movement into a dead fish to make it look like it’s injured. You need the fish to move forward in jerks and so you have to hook it the other way around to fishing a static deadbait, otherwise you would be moving the fish through the water backwards which is hardly natural! The pike will take your fish aggressively as it’s on the move, and immediate strikes usually result in a hook-up.

A bait correctly hooked for sink and draw fishing…

This time the top treble goes through the top lip of the fish.

Put a slight bend in the fish before attaching the bottom treble in the flank.

This bend helps you mimic an injured fish on the retrieve.

Hooking A Livebait
There are a number of ways to hook a livebait but the one shown here has proved to be very effective over the years both in terms of giving your livebait freedom of movement and with hook-ups. We have used a dead roach in this sequence for illustration needs. Be sure to choose a trace to complement the length of your bait. The hooks should be a suitable distance apart so that at least one of them is in the pike’s mouth when it grabs the bait. To ensure the bait stays lively for as long as possible, insert the hooks very gently into the fish.

This is how you should hook a livebait.

Insert the lower treble into the root of the pectoral fin.

The upper treble goes into the root of the dorsal fin.

The trace between the two hooks should be tight on the completed set-up.