Expert Fishing Tackle Reviews & Advice
There’s a particular kind of stubbornness required to stand on a frosty towpath in January, breath fogging, fingers barely working the reel, waiting for a bite that might not come for another twenty minutes. Perch lures for winter aren’t about brute force or fast, flashy retrieves — they’re about patience, and choosing something that moves … Read more
Stand on any UK canal towpath long enough and you’ll spot them: anglers flicking tiny spinners under the far bank, twitching soft plastics past moored boats, working a lure back with the patience of someone who’s done this a thousand times before. They’re not messing about. Perch are one of the most rewarding predators a … Read more
There’s a particular kind of quiet that settles over a canal towpath just before a perch takes a drop shot lure — line gone still, rod tip barely twitching, and then that unmistakable rattly tap-tap-tap that separates a genuine bite from a snag on a shopping trolley. Feeling that bite in the first place is … Read more
You don’t need to spend £150 on a Japanese blank to catch perch. Some of the scrappiest, most aggressive stripey takes you’ll ever feel come through a rod that cost less than a decent pair of wading boots. A good perch rod under £50 genuinely can deliver most of what a premium rod offers for … Read more
There’s a particular thrill to feeling a perch inhale a lure — that tiny, almost apologetic tap on the rod tip, followed by a stubborn, head-shaking scrap that punches well above the fish’s actual weight. Get the wrong perch fishing rod in your hand, though, and that same bite can vanish completely, swallowed by a … Read more
There’s a particular kind of despair that comes from watching a pike mouth your bait, hold it for three agonising seconds, and then drift off into the reeds untouched. Nine times out of ten, the post-mortem isn’t about your bait choice or your rod angle. It’s about the two little bundles of steel sitting under … Read more
Somewhere in a tackle box drawer near you, there’s a tangle of treble hooks that have seen better days — dulled points, a faint bloom of rust creeping along the shank, a barb that’s been flattened one too many times with a pair of pliers. Treble hooks for pike aren’t glamorous. Nobody buys a rod … Read more
There’s a specific kind of heartbreak in pike fishing that has nothing to do with missed takes: you finally connect with a proper fish, get it thrashing at the net, and then notice your trace has coiled itself into a tight, useless spiral. Choosing between a titanium wire trace and a steel wire trace for … Read more
Lose a lure to a pike once and you’ll never fish without a proper trace again. Wire traces for pike exist for one blunt reason: a pike’s teeth will saw straight through mono or braid in seconds, and what’s left behind is either a lost lure or, worse, a fish swimming off with a hook … Read more
Ask ten pike anglers how to rig soft plastics for pike and you’ll get eleven opinions, half a dozen contradictions, and at least one story about the “one that got off because the jig head was too light.” That’s not because soft plastic rigging is complicated — it genuinely isn’t — it’s because most anglers … Read more