Rich

Wow. I'm almost too old to fit the criteria! Lol

I'm really pretty new to open water pike. Spare for days smashing them on fast lures on the bay, I've never put full season's effort into catching them. So far the only things that ever seem to catch them are fast moving baits. Spinnerbaits, bucktails, spoons and jerkbaits, namely. Tossing these baits is fun and semi-productive for now. But the water is heating up. In all my time bass fishing I have never incidentally hooked very many pike slow crawling or drop shotting soft plastics. But there must be a way to catch inactive pike! Looking for any ideas or suggestions others have for when the pike really slow down. Preferrably not live or dead bait.. i have experience with that, I know it can be a surefire method, but there must be imitations available?!

All I know is I painted the front hook on my favourite Jitterbug red with nail polish once. I left the barbs exposed and painted the rest so as not to dull it. Now it has a red, sharp hook. Oh , and it hasn't caught a fish ever since.

Okay, I'm gonna post this everytime people debate the 'early' season. Why is it illegal to pull the most prolific and abundant fish in the province off a spawning bed for 15 seconds, and protected for months, yet at the same time it's perfectly legal for folks to line up a decimate salmon/steelhead on their migratory run every year, and worse yet tromp all over their beds?

Lol. I dont even know where I got haliburton from. Wow. Just knocked down a whole nother level of stupid.

If anyone's looking into an inflatable, or is on the fence about it - get one!! I do love the Sea Eagle. Its too bad that happened but hopefully it was just a rare defect. I guess I'll know by next season. Haha

Okay. Said I could be wrong. The story sounds identical to the haliburton lake I'm thinking of, as does that shoreline. I honestly pulled a pic out of an album last night of me holding a smallie in what looks like the exact same spot, to a freakin tee! But, shorelines can obviously look quite similar in haliburton back lakes. Either way, as I said, thats a BEAST! Chester's a fat american who loves pike, and is responsible for their introduction/destruction of a few Haliburton lakes. Biggest one being Kushog. I wish I knew that arse's last name. He moved a few years back. Never seen him since.

They must go shallow at night. This is the first year I've heard in a long time the pier fishermen are getting the odd one at dawn while perch fishing.

I do the same thing but with 3" grubs instead of hair jigs. It's really just the only way I know to catch kawartha walleye. Lol

Enjoy your early bass season. For some reason those of us in the actual southernmost part of ontario have to wait the extra week still.

I don't find they do on bucktails. I lose a whole lotta fish either way. Lol But on single hook lures I find you lose more fish with a pinched barb.

PS: That is a BEAST!!

Pretty sure my grandfather's cottage is directly to your right about a half klick. Could be wrong but it sure looks like a familiar shoreline. If so, yes they paid to stock all sorts of things, collectively, over the years. Lakers, specks, bows, walleye.. the only fish that ever stuck were rock bass, LM and SM. til Chester put the pike in. Everyone knows Chester did it. just ask the cottagers.

Final update: Sea Eagle is replacing the hull, no charge. Thanks all for the awesome advice, namely looking up the proof of purchase. I simply logged into Cabelas and hit print screen on the order confirmation page.

Beauty, a truest of true jumbo!

More like 70-80, at least on long point bay. Only successful times were when we marked them thick in 70+ and drifted harnesses through... Its tough to find a calm enough day to do that. Most guys are running dipsys and riggers to get em out there. Different parts of the lake may vary, I know they are much shallower in the western basin...

There was never specks there. The locals dont know a rock bass from a laker.

40-50 ft is perch water..

Livin' the dream!! Nice!

Nice!! Super jealous.. i've still never caught one or even come close to it.

Brought up in another thread about pike, there was some cool stories being told of just how hardy pike can be. One member mentioned a filleted pike, swimming off into the depths. I've personally seen a pike dropped on a rock, neck snapped, get it's neck punched back into shape, and swim off. I also went on a meat mission with some folks from germany once. We kept a lotta pike, but I got my PB during the week, which they kept (20lbs) and man oh man when that thing was laying in the boat I went at it with a baseball bat "trying to put it out of its misery" quick, well i caved his skull right in. He still flapped around in the boat. We put him on shore in the sun, swam for three hours, and when we went to fillet him, we could not keep the thing still. Like it was just out of the water and into the boat. Insane. Anyway, would like to hear more incredible stories of pike or any other fish's survival you have witnessed.

Actually the only illegal part is the live transportation from waterbody to aquarium. Haha

Nice fish!! I say 30 and up is your trophy class carp around these parts, so you sir, got a trophy!

We used to catch wipers regularly at the nanticoke outflow. Knew they were wipers because they averaged about two pounds and went to almost 4 sometimes. Thats the closest thing we have to stripers in ontario, and I havent seen one in 6 years there. You can catch stripers on the east coast though, surf fishing in the summer.

It's not really a maps app, but it ties in with your google maps.. "my fishing companion" ... It is free. It allows you to add a journal entry w/pics and mark spots where you caught fish. It worked amazing for ice fishing.