pike slayer

haha ya i have to agree with ya dara! the farther away from the bus terminal the better LOL. all the weirdos are down there and i don't like talking to them!

im no expert but last year on my favorite smallmouth/walleye lake i seen 4 cormorants. i was there last week and i now counted 8 cormorants. I'm gonna let him eat, sleep, and enjoy themselves but the party is gonna be over come partridge season when i'm passing by with my shot gun.

ya it seems like its taking forever for the warm water to get here. the lake trout seem to be loving it and are probably taking a good beating. it'll eventually come, this is a "normal" year which we havent had in quite a few years due to "global warming"

haha ya your just jealous archie with that little 3lber you caught today haha! and ya i mainly just go sunday driving go on little adventures, the fish arent far at all!

well i say i'd be putting it in the lake you are going to fish but if its more then 20min from your house then i say its a complete waste of time. i say just toss the trap in any old creek or pond that you know theres bait fish in and leave it over night with some bread or dog food. i'm pretty sure there are no real regulations for trapping your own bait as long as your gonna use it and not sell it. i'm pretty sure all you need is your name and number on the trap. i find it just easier to go buy minnows or use crankbaits

ya ya now you got him hooked and no pike is safe now! good going and a decent size for a first. those x-raps are money i always preach about them. and my buddy and i always have a tradition everytime we go fishing and that we have a victory gar after the first fish of the day then victory gars for more "trophy" fish. we have beening doing this for 3 years now. i swear the smell of caption blacks brings in the fish especially ice fishing

thanks for the comments and ya this is only 40min from the sault! you dont have to go far at all for decent fishing

ya i've been casting #10-14 x-raps which believe the #10 is 5/8 of an oz. i hope thats a large enough weight to start playing with. im not all about casting as far as i can but i wanna be far enough away from structure that i dont spook the fish. like with my spinning setup i see that log in the water 40feet away and bam im not it. with the baitcaster i cast as hard as i can without throwing my shoulder out and im 10 feet before the log. i got it down pretty good 20feet around the boat haha! i see in the other thread about the baitcaster being more accurate and i cant make it to the target!! you think switching to a lighter mono line will help with my casting? and i get a bad birds nest and i toss the caster in the boat and pick up my spinning rod and keep on fishing and deal with it later haha!! im just gonna keep tinkering with settings and try to play with that magentic brake system see if that helps or see how much worse it gets haha!

heres one of the lakers i caught on the #2 mepps comet with white and red on it and the dressed hook. mmm mmm he was good!

So last wednesday i went out fishing with my old foreman from work. We went out on tilley lake about 40min north of sault ste. marie. We got on the water at 1pm and we started trolling. Right off the bat we got a double header, 2 nice walleye, one on a worm harness and the other on gulp. We then trolled around around all afternoon just picking up oos smallies. The one smallie i got was 5lbs my personal largest to date and she went back in to grow bigger and be caught another day! We were trolling along a weed bed with worm harnesses and my buddy hooked into a speck! now i've fished this lake 30-40times and i never seen a speck come out of there before but i have heard they were in there yet i've never actually talked to anyone that actually caught one. i was upset my buddy kept it, i would have thrown it back to help them out to produce more fish but ahhh well. at the end of the day we got 4 walleye, 10smallies, 5suckers and 1 speck. We were using #8 x-raps, berkley gulp, and worm harnesses. So on friday my buddy and i hiked into bone lake which is a 20min drive north of the sault then a 20min hike through the bush. Now i've only ice fished this lake and everytime i went i've cleaned house. So we were feeling pretty good about this lake. we carried in a rubber dingy, a minn kota, battery, and fishing gear. We went trolling around the lake and we were just laying into them with a #2 mepps comet with the dressed treble hook. We hooked into about 15-20 small lakers and lost a ton at the boat cause we didnt bring a net. we did end up bringing home our limit. we fished from 11-4 till it started raining and it was a great day other then a spillion skeeters everywhere and carrying the heavy battery. theres a pic of the one laker in the second post, thats the average size in the lake and its just polluted with them!

kk thanks! i watched a video on youtube about adjusting your baitcaster and the guy was talking about taking off the side plate and adjusting some kinda brake in there as well??

i looked at the diagram they send of the reel and i cant seem to open up and find the brake system on the reel to adjust it, i fear braking it taking it apart or not being able to get it back together.

So all my life i've used spinning rod and i can cast very accurate with it and get lots of distance. i got a 6'6" shimano medium fast action rod with a shimano reel with the quick fire trigger system and i usually put on 8-12lb test lines. with this rod i can cast a mile with it. this year i decided to buy a baitcaster to see what the hype is all about. i bought a cabelas fish eagle 7' medium heavy rod with the diawa megaforce, it seemed like a decent mid price range setup. i spooled it up with a 20lb spiderwire ultra cast. i've been playing around with it getting the feel for it. i find its alot more comfortable in my hands and its alot nicer for working baits. i've played with the settings on it and i found a #10xrap casts the best on the #5 setting. but the problem is can cant seem to get like half the distance as my spinning rod with the same lure. its almost a joke the distance i get with it. how can i get a good casting distance with my baitcaster?

i put that spiderwire ez braid on a spinning rod/reel of mine and after the first time out it frayed like crazy and i didnt trust it and took it off. i dont think i'd buy it again and just go with the ultracast when it goes on sale for $20 a spool at crappy.

ya definitly doesnt look strong but hey it'll work! my boat is pretty ghetto to lol! right after the snow left my buddy called me and said we are going to the camp tomorrow and bring your boat. my boat leaks like crazy and i was like crap i gotta fix that before i go. so i went out in the pouring rain and took a tube of PL premium and just layed it on thick! i was a little nervous about my boat and i didnt even know if it would even be that dry yet but i took it out anyways and well it doesnt leak a drop and i've used it 3-4times now haha!! you dont need to be impressing ppl with your sweet ride out on the lake. impress ppl with the fish you catch!

yeeeeeah t.j that lucky strike spoon is money!! the pike just love it and i've even caught pike with it just jiggng it straight in the winter to. also only $3.99 at cappy tire! my buddy even caught a 2.5lb whitefish trolling with it. i've been wanting to try it for lake trout to. definitely a must have lure for every tackle box out there!

ya i'd be picking up a shimano combo. probably a 6'6" medium fast action rod. they have enough backbone to hook into a big fish (i've caught a 15lb pike and a 15lb carp on my "cheap" shimano combo from crappy tire) and yet the tip is senstive enough to feel really light bites like speck fish or fincky walleye. i'd go with probably a 10lb mono line, just remember you get what you pay for when it comes to line, dont buy the cheapest stuff.

the one thing i dont understand the whole point of this is when you set the hook you are pulling on the fishes mouth and reeling in the fish is fighting and trying to pull away. Doesnt all this tugging and pulling cause strain maybe even more then holding the fish vertically. also what about those bass fishermen in tournaments that dont have the time to net and just pull the fish up and flop it in the boat with just the rod? alot of small fish i catch i do the same, if its pike, bass, walleye, specks, etc. that must be causing more strain on the fish. also when holding the fish horizontal and the fish starts to thrash around and go crazy in my hands i end up squeezing the fish tightly, maybe to tightly and it just happens on accident cause im sure dropping the fish isnt good at all. now when i squeeze the fish they've crapped themselves and im sure thats not very good for them. im not so sure its a bright idea holding them horizontal squeezing their guts, i could be wrong...

x-rap!

i personally really like the rear drag system. They are nice when you hook into a larger fish and you need to readjust your drag and you can keep tension on the line while doing it. the rear drag came in handy today when i hooked into a 5lb smallie and i did take a pic real quick and the pic will probably be posted tomorrow or the next day!

i've heard of this practice, my buddy does it all the time and i think it tastes worse after. i probably couldnt tell the different between fresh and frozen. i think its all in your head.

nice wally! if you need someone to join you and help with gas i'm ready for fishing anytime!!

nice wally! if you need someone to join you and help with gas i'm ready for fishing anytime!!

rod/reel, tackle box full of goodies including pliers and weigh scale, sun lotion, bug spray, etc you know it and its in my tackle box. you cant forgot victory gars for the first fish caught and a trophy fish! stringer, cooler with goodies!

nice wally. were you in that shallow bay left of the highway going towards echo bay? i've heard ppl getting some good sized pike at the bridge there