Cheers for that mate, and you will see on your thread where I leave an open question about if you wanted to catch a pike on a lure, my thinking was your a bass/sea angler wanting to catch a pike on a lure for the first time or for the species challenge where I've assisted in the past. Again I could help!
As for the ego thing, I went through my thread starts and most of the catch results the venue was given and I was promoting the venue to help others. Most of which are not pike but you have given the reasons in your posts.
To lighten this thread up a bit, I once went to a water I'd done some homework on. We got there and met the owner who took our money. I asked about pike catches and he said it's been poor, but his words there is a big ******* in here. He left and we fished on.
The next day we were there and he came round and asked how we had done. I said we had blanked. He just took the money and left. Little did he know I had that big ******* at well over 20lb. They had a match on the lake and one of the match lads caught a jack and was mocking us pike anglers for struggling. That's pike angling, not many people know about the big ******* and after the match lads went I had 3 pike.
As to the decimation of pike certainly on the waters I used to fish was down to the huge pressure being put on the baitfish stocks due to an explosion in the population of otters and cormorants and not illegal fishing.I have a great respect for Jim as an angler and think in the cold light of day that maybe both of us regret turning an honest reply into a personal keyboard war.
