...for serious pike and predator anglers!
How to hold pike - my way!
When holding a pike by the gill cover in the way shown above, should the pike start to thrash, the usual reaction is either to tighten the thumb grip, which can result in the thumb piecing the thin skin tissue beneath the chin and making a nasty hole - or letting go of the pike altogether!!
Neither of the above, I'm sure you'll agree, are going to do your prize catch any good at all.
If you grip the gill cover in the way shown above, with the thumb bent over and hard against the palatine bone and thin skin tissue, you will never hole another pike. Note how the knuckle of the thumb has gone white.
The above grip is a much firmer to that shown on the left.
I have had many experienced pike anglers out with me who have said how much easier and safer it feels when using this grip to hold pike of any size!
With regard to supporting pike while holding them up for photographing, you will see that I always use one hand, be it my left of right hand, to grip the gill cover and palatine bone, and use my other hand and arm to give additional support to the pike's body - reducing suspended weight from the gill cover and 'V' bone, which your index finger is forced against as you lift the pike, by approximately 50% of the pike's overall body weight. I much prefer to use this grip to any other. If you do not have a firm grip of a pike when being photographed with it, e.g. just supported on two hands, if the pike suddenly thrashes, you will have no way whatsoever of stopping it from falling from your hands to the floor/deck.
As many people in the past have commented: "Why bother taking a pike out of the water in the first place." That all sounds very nice, and is often the norm with me, but when that special fish comes along that you've been waiting so very long to catch, don't begrudge anybody a photo. I have been telling newcomers to pike fishing for years, that it is far better to have a picture of a pike to look back on, rather than a dead stuffed pike in a glass case on their sideboard!!
NO!!!
YES!