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Long time passing... I'm sure the MNR stocked Wynn Lake with aurora trout last year, in preparation for this year's short season for the unspeckled speckled trout, but they're not in there anymore. Or if they are, they're hiding, but not from me... I'd heard that three years ago guys were pulling pike out of the lake, so I wasn't going to try this year. But then I also heard that the MNR "checked it out" and found no pike. So, let's go for a couple hour drive and try our hand at the elusive trout once again... A few hours on the lake, I've tried a few presentations, casting, trolling, some slip-floating.. Nothing. Then I put on a perch-pattern shallow shad Rap that I can remember buying 20 years ago. Figured I'd troll it fairly shallow over downed trees and such. I made one pass. Nothing. Shortly after reaching the end of the lake, I turned around and started off again when the lure got snagged. Then it started pulling, and for a brief second I had visions of me posting a real picture of myself on here with a fish that doesn't even exist. Then it started pulling. I thought I must've hooked the world-record aurora, since there's no pike in this lake. Then I saw it... An old, nasty, dark, enormous pike. It was fat. Fat. Very clearly its belly was full of every last aurora trout the MNR dumped in there. I haven't seen a pike that big in person before. The biggest I landed was about 34" (maybe 35", I can't remember off the top of my head), and I lost one when fishing with Rod Caster that was probably about the same. This one was bigger. I'm not sure how much bigger, since I didn't land it. I tried to tire him out, and I thought he was played right out. He wasn't fighting anymore. But alas, I had no net large enough for a fish that big, and as I reached down to lift him out, he took another run and cut through my 8lb leaderless fluoro. There goes my lure... And my swivel snap. If I *had* landed him, I would have cut him up and gifted him to my brother. And I'd probably have pulled an aurora outta the gut and snapped a pic. After all, I would have finally caught one, right? Here's a vid, though it doesn't really give much of an indication of how big the pike was - at least you can see it. Heed my warning - don't bother trying for auroras here. I'm never trying this lake again. Wynn? More like Fayll, AMIRITE? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzQHHGWIK0A After losing the battle, it was now approaching 11am, and I headed back to shore. I tried to find access into a couple rainbow trout lakes. One has no roads leading into it that I could find, and the other was filled with private cottages, and no way to access it for poor folks. Good thing the MNR stocks these private lakes for the ten families that can afford to live there in the warm months. I found my way back to a different rainbow lake, closer to home. Fished it until after sunset, having only briefly tussled with a small bow, which shook lose my hooks after a jump. Shortly afterwards I landed a sucker, which seemed to attack one of the trebles with the top of its head, and the other with the side of its face... At the end of the day, I went home with no trout, cold hands, and a realization that I was indeed the sucker. I'm packing away the leaky Sportspal tonight. This year has frankly sucked for me, and I miss my kid when I'm out. He'll be coming with soon enough; if not next season, then the one after. At least with him with me, the sting of the skunk won't hurt so bad.