August is the most boring month of the year to talk about pike, and the best month to do something about it.

The water is warm, the fish are deep and sluggish, and most pike anglers are sitting in wait mode until the mercury drops. That’s exactly why this is the moment to check over your gear. Because once autumn kicks off, you want to be out on the water, not discovering in your garage that your wire leader is discoloured and your only good unhooking pliers have been missing for two seasons.

The annoying truth about pike fishing: gear failure almost never happens on an average day. It happens on the biggest fish of your season. A line that’s fine 95 percent of the time snaps at exactly the moment it matters — because that’s the moment real load is actually on it.

Here are six things you need to check right now.

1. Your mainline — and especially the last twenty metres

Braided line doesn’t wear evenly. The first several dozen metres from your lure take all the punishment: abrasion over riprap, contact with pike teeth, the constant friction through your tip ring.

Pull the last twenty metres through your fingers. Do you feel rough patches, fraying or flattened sections? Then cut them off. Costs you nothing, and it removes exactly the break you don’t want to deal with later.

Is your whole spool due for replacement but there’s still life left in it? Flip the line. The bottom half of your spool has never been used and is still like new. That gets you a whole extra season out of it.

When to actually replace it: when the colour is clearly faded, when the line feels stiffer than when you bought it, or after about two intensive seasons. When in doubt, replace it. A spool of line costs less than a day’s fishing.

2. Leaders — the shortest link is the most important one

Without a proper leader, you’re not fishing for pike. Full stop. Pike teeth go through thirty-pound fluorocarbon like it’s nothing. We usually go with a minimum of 0.70mm ourselves.

What to check:

• Kinks in wire leaders. One kink and the strength is gone. Don’t straighten it out — throw it away.
• Discolouration and tarnishing. Points to corrosion in the wire strands.
• Swivels and snap clips. Play, rust, or a clasp that no longer clicks shut firmly: replace it.
• The crimp sleeve or clamp. Is it still tight? This is where homemade leaders fail first.

Now put together a small stock of five to ten leaders in various lengths. Having to tie a leader on the water with cold fingers while the fish are feeding is a waste of your time.

3. Hooks and trebles

This is the step most people skip, and it’s the one that costs you the most fish.

A blunt hook point you can hear. Drag the point across your thumbnail: if it doesn’t grab on its own but slides off, it’s blunt. With a pike’s mouth of bone and cartilage, a blunt hook simply won’t punch through.

Go through your boxes and toss anything that’s rusted, bent or slipping. Be strict about it. Hooks are the cheapest part of your whole setup and the only part that actually holds the fish. That’s an absurdly good ratio to be cheap on.

For your go-to favourites, replace the factory trebles right away. On a lot of lures, those are the weakest part of the whole thing.

4. Your reel itself

Three quick checks:

• The drag. Pull line off your reel with the drag set to fishing strength. Does it run smoothly, or does it start jerkily? Jerky means worn drag washers — and that’s exactly what causes a line break on a run right next to the boat.
• Store your reel with the drag loosened. If you leave it set tight, the washers get compressed flat.
• Maintenance. A drop of oil on the main shaft and a bit of grease on the handle. Five minutes of work.

5. Unhooking gear — this is not an optional part of your kit

If you fish for pike, you need this. Not because it looks tidy, but because without this gear you’ll damage the fish and cut yourself.

The minimum set:

• Long unhooking forceps, at least 25 to 30 cm
• Treble hook cutters or side cutters that will bite through a treble hook. On a deeply hooked fish, cutting is faster and safer than wrestling with it.
• An unhooking mat, wetted before you lay the fish on it
• A large landing net with a knotless, rubber-coated mesh

Test your cutters now, at home, on an old treble. Discovering they won’t cut through it while an 80cm fish is thrashing about is not the moment to find out your tools aren’t up to the job.

6. Your rod

Check the guides. Run a cotton bud through each ring — if cotton fibres catch, there’s a crack or a sharp edge in the lining. That’s guaranteed to saw through your braid.

Also check whether the reel seat still tightens properly, and on a two-piece rod, whether there’s any play or cracks in the joint.

And then the boring but important part

Before your first cast, check the rules for the water you’re fishing. Closed seasons, minimum sizes and licence conditions vary by region and sometimes by water, and they get updated. It’s five minutes of looking things up, and it prevents both a fine and damage to the fish stock.

Quick summary

Set aside an evening for this in August. In October you’ll be glad you did.