need help

[MTpike]

I've tried spearing three times this year and all three times i've had the same results. I set up shop, put my platic perch color decoy in the water and within five minutes a pike shows up and either i dont get a shot at him or i miss him or he falls my spear etc.. After that though nothing ever shows up, one pike and thats it. What am i doing wrong. What's the average number of pike that come under your guys' spear holes Also when you do hit one, do u let go of the spear or just pin him to the bottom. When one shows up, do i keep jigging the decoy or immediately grab my spear. Any tips would help. Thanks

[Whatpole]

My first question is, is it just you, or is someone along with you? If someone is with, you or the other person can man the spear, while the other person can jig the decoy alittle. Be sure to ease the head of the spear in the water before you give it that toss. Second question is, how big are the barbs on your spear? You want some fairly aggresive barbs to hold the fish on the spear. Do you use a live decoy? I try not to pin the fish to the bottom, as this really murkies up the hole. There are days I have limited out spearing, and there are days when I, just like you, have only seen one fish, and that is right after I set up, and seen nothing for the rest of the day. I would try a jigging rattling Rappala once, see if you can "call" some in.

[MTpike]

I usually spear by myself. I could get someone to come man the decoy though (good idea). My spear is definately not the cream of the crop and the barbs are quite small. Now that i think of it, the day i did use a live decoy i had two pike come in. Are live decoys more effective? Thanks for the tips. I am definately going to try using a rattling rapala.

[Whatpole]

Check the F&G regulations for the max size of your fishing hole. In eastern MT there is no size limit to the hole you can fish out of.

With the Rapalla, I would remove the hooks to use in the spearhole. As far as live bait, I would see what you could do to tie it on, so as not to use a hook.

These suggestions are dependant if you can or cannot fish out of your spear hole.

[MTpike]

Thanks. I'm in the central district and the way I interpret the regs is if the water you're in is open to spearing, you can fish or spear out of your hole and it doesn't matter how big it is.

[darkhousefisher]

In MT I would use both my fake decoy and a live decoy.  Here in Alaska, no live bait is allowed, so I use fake decoys.  When a pike comes in, I like to lure the pike into a good shot by using the decoy/s.  Smaller pike I try to lure just under the ice so I don't have to let go of my spear, then just jab them behind the gills and pull them out.  For larger pike or pike that don't want to rise in the water, I lure into a good shot then give the spear a forced drop.  If the pike is really flopping around, or I speared it back by the tail, I will take them to the bottom and let the weight of the spear pin them there until they "calm down" a little bit, then try to get them up out of the hole quickly. 
As soon as a pike comes into the hole, I lower the head of the spear into the water.  If you are holding the spear above the water when you release it, it will make a splash and spook the fish before your spear gets there.  I like to hold the spear head about 2-3 feet underwater, this makes it easier to judge the refraction from the water.

[darkhousefisher]

Does your spear have barbs made by angle cutting into tines?  If it does, heat the barb where it attaches to the tine to a dull to cherry red, and bend it out some more.  I have done that to spears I have made and it really made a difference.  Hope this helps!!

[MTpike]

Thanks for all the great tips and info. I will have to try and bend the barbs out a little bit on my spear. I'll let you guys know when I finally spear and land one. I should have had one this weekend but I hesitated just a little bit and that gave the pike time to hit my decoy and spook off.

[MrMarty51]

If You could take a pic of Your spear and post it in the pics. of Your spear section in the darkhouse fishing then we could take a look at it and see what the barbs are and maby get some more advice to You.Whatpole lost a real nice northern due to inefficient barbs so we rebuilt His spear and added more tines and used 1/4 in steel and made and shaped new barbs completely removing the originals and welding on the new ones.His spear is in there too along with some darkhouse has built so maby look them over and You can get some ideas.

[Higgins]

Just wanted to know if your shanty is 100% dark because any light will cast a reflection and the fish will spook. Also are you being very quiet when you move to spear the fish because any sound from your feet or the spear will spook him. And as for what I do after I let go of the spear, I grab it rite after I let go and steadily pull up but not too fast because you can pull the spear rite out if you do it to fast then once I get him out of the water he becomes much heaver so I maid a wooden plank rite above the hole to shove him up against until he callmes down. I suggest that you try every thing in this thread because it is all good advise and you will have your prize if done correctly. GOO LUCK

[Higgins]

I've tried spearing three times this year and all three times i've had the same results. I set up shop, put my platic perch color decoy in the water and within five minutes a pike shows up and either i dont get a shot at him or i miss him or he falls my spear etc.. After that though nothing ever shows up, one pike and thats it. What am i doing wrong. What's the average number of pike that come under your guys' spear holes Also when you do hit one, do u let go of the spear or just pin him to the bottom. When one shows up, do i keep jigging the decoy or immediately grab my spear. Any tips would help. Thanks

Just wanted to know if your shanty is 100% dark because any light will cast a reflection and the fish will spook. Also are you being very quit when you move to spear the fish because any sound from your feet or the spear will spook him. And as for what I do after I let go of the spear, I grab it rite after I let go and steadily pull up but not too fast because you can pull the spear rite out if you do it to fast then once I get him out of the water he becomes much heaver so I maid a wooden plank rite above the hole to shove him up against until he callmes down. I suggest that you try every thing in this thread because it is all good advise and you will have your prize if done correctly. GOOD LUCK 

[MTpike]

Thanks again for all the tips. I actually use a dark ground blind for a spear shack (yeah I'm making do with what i got). It seems to be plenty dark though. I'll try and get some pics of my spear on here. For the most part, I haven't spooked very many fish prematurely, this weekend I lowered my spear into the water for the kill shot and then he nailed my decoy and sped off before i could strike. When he came back soon after, my spear was still half way down there and it spooked.

[MrMarty51]

Keep at it You will get them. 

[darkhousefisher]

Well, have you had any luck yet??

[MTpike]

I haven't tried for awhile. I'm probably going this weekend and I'm gonna focus all my efforts on spearing, being as this is probably the last time I will get out before open water. I always get at least one pike to come in to my decoy at this particular lake so all I need to do is Git R' Done.
I will have a live decoy (if i can jig one up ), plastic decoy, and a big flasher spoon to try out.

[MTpike]

Well, I went out this weekend and I finally speared a pike  . It showed up within seconds of me putting my decoy in the water and I speared him. It was only a hammer-handle but oh well, it is the first pike I've speared. Of course, that was the only pike I saw all day. 

[spearchucker]

Congrats!! At least you were ready for him when he came in. I learned the hard way not to drop the decoy in the water until you are entirely situated and ready to thow the spear.

[MTpike]

Thanks. The pike in that spot ALWAYS seem to show up right away. So after multiple failures, I was ready this time.
What a rush. I wish that I could actually get more than one to show up though. It would be great fun to spear a couple of those things.

[MrMarty51]

Well, I went out this weekend and I finally speared a pike  . It showed up within seconds of me putting my decoy in the water and I speared him. It was only a hammer-handle but oh well, it is the first pike I've speared. Of course, that was the only pike I saw all day. 

Thats the way I  speared My first pike.Got the shanty set up and Whatpole told Me to watch the hole while He went out to drill some holes and He no more`n got out the door and here it came,grabbed the live decoy,made a circle around and I nailed it,shoved it to the bottom and murkeed the hole with mud and weeds{hey it was the first time  }when I brought it up.it was so bad that we ended up moving the shanty after a while.  Havent been able to hit another one since  But their days a commin.