Fall Pike

[LucG]

Headed out on sunday with my cousin searching for some fall pike. We had been to this lake on several occasion throughout the summer and we were able to use the same pattern each time. We would catch them on spinnerbaits, mainly two colours, and we would also catch them on jerkbaits in similar colours. Their main forage seemed to be perch and small baitfish, thus the orange/green/chartreuse blends did extremely well.

 

Anyways, on sunday morning it was cold, very cold. We had originaly planed on hitting them first thing, but that soon changed. We ended up making our first cast around 11 or so, it was still pretty cold and overcast, and the pike werent cooperating. Spent the next couple hours trying to find the pike as they had moved away from the shallow weed beds that at one time held all the baitfish. But the weeds were allready brown and receding, and there was no baitfish around. We were only managed one small one.

 

By 2 or so, the sun had come out, and it warmed up quite a bit (maybe 9 degrees celcius or so). We found a large cabbage weedbed in the middle of the lake surrounded by boulders the size of cars and next to fairly deep water. Right away we had multiple follow ups but couldnt get any to bite. We tried different bait/patterns, but only managed to convince a few to bite. Then it came to me...I went into my bass tackle and pulled out a bag of gulp alive 3" minnows and used them on my trailer hook. Let me tell you...it turned every follower into a biter! Turned out to be a beautiful day weather wise and the fishing picked up! Managed to land 20+ fish. No monsters, but the average being around 26 inches. Here are a few shots.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 4, 2010 by LucG

[Governator]

Great post thanks for sharing. We went out Sunday morning for pike as well, were on the water at about 8am (Freezing in 4 degree weather mind you). We only landed one pike a little later a few hours later.

 

Is fishing for pike in the fall better once the day warms up? It seems so by your example and I've also read this elsewhere too but never applied it. I think we just wasted a morning, although a day fishing is still a better than not.

[Rod Caster]

Looks like a nice calm day in the pics....also looks chili....gotta love fall.

 

Good job adjusting your techniques. They were reticent to bite but you managed to lure them in.

[brickNblock]

20+..I'd call that a fairly successful day.

 

Always found the pike bitebest around the noon hour for 2 hrs...varying either side of the noon hour.(spring & fall)

 

EXELLENT notion and intuition to take it to the next level by re-thinking the situation however...exellent.

Glad it worked for you, its great when tinkering a little works, thats the real success of the day.

-bNb

[TC1OZ]

I always tip my spinners with those gulp alive minnows, rather than a curly tail grub. I figure its going to add sent along with that extra motion that fish love so much.

 

 

Just when you start off using the secrete weapon and can't produce a fish it gets you thinking... hahaha

 

Thanks for the report, looks like an excellent day out!