The true origin of pirk fishing is somewhat vague. Some say it started in Scandinavia. Few doubt that modern pirk fishing comes from that corner of the world. But its seeds could well have been sown much further back in time along Britain's North Sea coast. Pirks very probably started life as rippers rather than as lures. Rippers are large chunks of lead with loose swinging hooks attached to them fished from handlines to foul hook cod. Primitive perhaps, but they were tough times back then, and tough people too out in all sorts of conditions under sail or by oar power struggling to eek out a living. There was no job seekers allowance to fall back on a couple of centuries ago, so something had to be done. Through trial and error, over time, that lump of lead would have been modified for ease of use until a shape evolved that gave improved results by attracting more fish within foul hooking range. The next step was to scrape the lead with a knife to brighten up its otherwise dull appearance. Then as time went on, other materials and design adjustments played their part, and the rest as they say is history.

Sometimes in the development of an idea you hit upon a design or pattern very early on in the process which despite your best efforts over time is difficult to improve on. In that respect, some ripper designs have long stood the test of time. But now they are no longer used to foul hook fish. Cod are attracted to them through visual stimuli, attacking them in the same way they would a pirk, though for totally different reasons. For it isn't the body shape or colour of the modern ripper that is what the cod are trying to eat, because that is a straight bar of lead that becomes discoloured through use. This time it is the hooks that do all the business, firstly by attracting and provoking cod to strike, then by holding them there in the time honoured way. The beauty of this particular 'lure' is that it is both cheap and easy to make, and on its day, it can out-fish many of the over the counter pirks you might like to compare it to.

My introduction to the 'angling' ripper came at Hartlepool quite a few years ago. I was out with a party from Preston Sea Angling Club who had obviously been shown by skipper Clive Marrison how to make rippers. Everybody on board had them, presumably from a shared mould, because they all looked the same. And everybody on board cleaned up using them. We finished up with boxes filled with cod well into double figures. The total weight probably fell slightly short of the 1,000 pound mark, but not that far short, which for open ground fishing even when there were plenty of fish about wasn't bad going. And most, if not all of them, fell to this particular design of home made ripper hooking them fairly and squarely in or around the mouth.

Appearance wise, these rippers looked quite crude. I don't unfortunately have any pictures of the ones used on the day, but I can describe them accurately enough. The lead bar was around ¾ of an inch in diameter, cut to a suitable length/weight to cope with drift conditions, which on the day needed to be around a pound to keep a straight up and down line. One hole was drilled through the top for a piece of heavy duty green corlene string which had a swivel put onto it before being tied in a loop. Then at the bottom end, two holes were drilled, one above the other going through the lead at right angles to each other. Again green corlene string was used which, after being threaded through, had stopper knots tied into it at either side close to the lead body so it could not be pulled out. Each of the four tails was then cut to length so that when the four tinned 10/0 hooks were tied to the ends, they hung together as a bunch about 4 inches below the bottom of the ripper body.

Appearance wise, these rippers looked quite crude. I don't unfortunately have any pictures of the ones used on the day, but I can describe them accurately enough. The lead bar was around ¾ of an inch in diameter, cut to a suitable length/weight to cope with drift conditions, which on the day needed to be around a pound to keep a straight up and down line. One hole was drilled through the top for a piece of heavy duty green corlene string which had a swivel put onto it before being tied in a loop. Then at the bottom end, two holes were drilled, one above the other going through the lead at right angles to each other. Again green corlene string was used which, after being threaded through, had stopper knots tied into it at either side close to the lead body so it could not be pulled out. Each of the four tails was then cut to length so that when the four tinned 10/0 hooks were tied to the ends, they hung together as a bunch about 4 inches below the bottom of the ripper body.

Its the hooks and not the lure body which are the important feature here. The idea behind tying shiny tinned hooks to such long tails is to give them plenty of free movement and to allow them to work together as a team like darting sandeels, which form (or at least did before the fish meal factory ships starting cleaning them up) a large part of the staple diet of North Sea cod. But to get them to do this most effectively, the pirking action had been modified. Instead of a straight up and down action, the best results seemed to come, as I was told they would do, from more of an angled sideways sweep of the rod tip, switching sides with each alternate lift.

There was a time, and not too long ago, when large single hooks were quite popular on the bottom of pirks instead of trebles, the argument being that the twisting and turning of a hooked cod could actually lever the fish free of a treble hook. Whether this is actually the case is another matter. This idea then became modified to a sort of hybrid between the conventional pirk and the ripper. People started drilling holes in the side of lengths of chrome tube a couple of inches up from what would become the base of the lure body. Into this hole they would fix a small stainless steel wire loop with bends in the end of the wire so it would hold when the lead was later poured in. No loop was fixed at the bottom in the traditional way. The side loop then had a length of heavy mono tied to it which would be covered with whatever combination of coloured beads and PVC cable insulation took your fancy. A plated single hook was then tied to the end about 4 inches from the fixing loop. I even saw them on sale in a tackle shop in Scarborough. But these were fished in the same way as a conventional pirk.

One day I decided to progress the hybrid idea one step further. Using a bopedo mould, I cast a number of leads with wire loops at either side as well as one at the top for line attachment. I then attached two droppers with beads and PVC insulation as in the previous example. But what I also did was bait the hooks. Sometimes I would use lug and squid. On other occasions it would be mackerel strip. It depended very much on the species mix present. My reason for doing this was because I don't like pirk fishing, and with the bait I could have a bit of a rest every so often and still be in with a chance of picking up fish. But what I actually found was that when I abandoned the conventional pirk fishing big lift sink and draw approach, I caught more fish. Cod in particular love fresh bait, and very often I would be catching more during my rest periods than when doing the full pirking bit. What I also found was that a slow lift and drop just a couple of feet up and down from the bottom was better than going at it hell for leather.

I took a load of these over to Iceland fishing out of Keflavik. The boat itself was a traditional commercial handliner fitted with electric winches. Commercial tackle in Scandinavia is usually pretty crude, though obviously effective, with big hooks and plastic sandeel lures doing most of the damage. The deal was that the skipper would find the fish and we would catch them for the boat. An easy day out for him. But he was less than impressed with the two dropper baited lures. So much so that through the interpreter he said we would end up scaring the fish and come back with nothing. A couple of drifts later saw a quick change of mind. That was first time I had been able to try them over good concentrations of fish and in direct competition with conventional pirks. My method was a lot less labour intensive, a lot less costly in terms of losses, and as effective as anything else in use on the boat that day.

NOTE: Apologies for the quality of the Icelandic pictures which were scanned from slides