First pike of the season

[Garry2Rs]

Today I put my Ranger in the water for the first time since last fall. I had pre-tested everything at the house, so I knew the big motor would start right up, and there was power getting to the trolling motor etc.

 

The forecast was for thunder storms, but when the boat was ready, they hadn't shown up yet. At the lake the wind was howling, and the water was rough. First I tried a few casts in the open, but soon moved into a small cove on the lee side.

 

This cove has a shallow rock flat on one side and deeper water on the other. The water shallows out quickly and there are weeds in the back end and down the middle. I have caught pike there in the past. The attraction to day was it was sheltered from the wind.

 

I soon saw a nice 36-40 inch fish cruising. Unfortunately there were two smart-ash teens and there dim-wit Mother who didn't know that Pike were open, as of last Saturday, and they were "sure" I was fishing for Bass. They brought a paddle boat out and circled me with it...I told them to go hoop there foreheads, that I was legally fishing and that if they continued to harass me I would report them!

 

This backed them off a little, and when it started to rain they retreated to there cottage.

 

Without this distraction I was able to catch three pike on a 5 1/2" Rapala HJ13 in Glass Minnow pattern.

 

I was basically casting close to shore between the docks on the deep side of the cove. The first fish came from beside a blown down tree. The fish were in the deeper water and I had let the wind push me in too close. The fish started after the bait but seemed to see the boat and turn away.

 

I left him and moved to the next dock where again I saw a fish. The light came on and I turned a big circle. This brought me back to the blown down tree. One cast right down the length of the tree and it was fish on!

 

Buck(the wonder dog)tried to help me out by unhooking the flopping fish, but then I had to unhook him...grin.

 

I went out into the cove to release this fish, then came back to the second fish. Again I stood 60 odd feet off the end of the dock and cast to shore...Jerk-jerk-jerk, and I had him too.

 

I was now moving out of the cove and the wind was a lot stronger. We had another couple of minutes of rain and another round of distant thunder.

 

In front of me was a shoal that extended from a point out about one hundred feet or more. On my side of the shoal there was a stretch of hard bottom with big rock slabs.

 

There are three docks here and I often see Pike along this stretch. The pike are between the docks, not on or under them like a bass or musky might be. I got one more before the third round of rain and thunder.

 

At this point I had released the third fish and cast the shoal without finding anything and needed to head down the lake and into the weather, or head home. I decided to call it quits before the real storm reached me.

Edited May 24, 2011 by garry2rs

[Joey]

Great report Garry. Wish we had a cove we could have ducked into today, that wind was not very nice. Sounds like you had a great day, except for the fishing impeders

 

No pics?

[Aaron Shirley]

Nice to hear ya got pike in tough conditions. Maybe the paddle boaters just wanted the pike for themselves lol.

[Rizzo]

Thanks for the report. Hopefully these "paddle-boat police" are diligent when it really matters (when people really are fishing out of season)