North Kawartha Pike opener

[Garry2Rs]

Pike opened in my area this past Saturday, May 19th. As usual two couples, all long-time fishing friends stayed over at my place on Friday evening. Saturday they all made camp on an island. I hooked up with them around eleven AM both days and fished with the one couple Saturday and the other on Sunday. Both days we saw lots of Pike. About 20 of our fish were only follows but I managed to land 5 on Saturday.

 

On Sunday I had a short day due to other commitments and only fished three hours but still landed three fish.

 

Of my eight, two were hammer handles, two were thick 32-33 inch fish, one was quite large and heavy and three were mid-size eaters.

 

All my fish were caught from the back of the boat with the same rod and lure.

But please, let me tell you the whole story...

 

Last Fall, I purchased four 5 1/2 inch Rapala Husky Jerks on sale @$4.99 a piece on-line, from a store in Phoenix Arizona. To save shipping to Canada I arranged to pick these baits up on my my way through Phoenix, a few weeks later.

 

These baits might have been slow sellers in Arizona, but they looked like great Spring-time-in-Ontario Pike baits to me! Of coarse I had to wait six months to try them out, but it was worth it!

 

As stated, I bought four, a regular HJ Clown, a Tennessee Shad and a Blue/Chrome. The forth bait was labelled as a Suspending, Silver/Black. I'll tell you now that my "Lucky Bait" was this Silver-Black Suspending model HJ-14S. Although it says silver/black on the box, it's not their regular bright chrome finish like on the ever popular blue/chrome model. I think it looks slightly gold...But it's subtle, more like a light over-spray of yellow/gold paint, not the bright bronze/gold-foil of the regular Gold Husky Jerk. It also has a white belly which might have been important...Since the fish I cleaned had a 12 inch Cisco in it's stomach.

 

Strange as this might seem, I suspect that my casting rod had more than a little to do with my success! The rod I used was one that I made especially for Jerk-baits. I built it with a "short" for me, 7 inch handle.

 

Normally I like a handle around 9 inches. I cast two handed and I'm a big guy, so a little longer handle suits me. However, when using these rods for Jerk-baits I sometimes feel I'm fighting the long handle. Using the 7 inch grip I can still get two fingers on for my two-handed cast, but when working with the tip down, it doesn't seem to foul on my forearm like the longer grips do.

 

This rod started life as a two piece 6'6" IM6 Pac-Bay casting blank, rated MH, for 1/4-1oz. baits The blank has a medium action that I think is perfect for Jerk-baits. I'm six feet tall and for me, a 6'6" rod is the perfect length for working Jerk-baits. I know long rods are in style, but so were Afro's and platform shoes...The truth is, for me, longer rods want to hit the water on the down-stroke of my jerk-retrieve.

 

Frankly, I didn't need another rod of this weight/length/action, but I actually started building it as a test bed for some new ideas I had been reading about.

 

For sometime I had been studying the literature on what are called Spiral-Wraps. This is basically a saltwater idea that has the line start on top of a casting rod, like normal, but then spiral from the top of the blank to the bottom of the rod. There are several ways of laying out the guides, but the simplest seem to work just as well as the more complex plans, at least on mid-weight rods.

 

On this "simple lay-out" the first guide is placed more or less in it's normal spot, about 23 inches in front of the reel, on top of the rod, at what we can call the 12 o'clock position. The second guide (AKA the Bumper guide) is mounted at right angles, at what we can call 3 o'clock. The rest of the guides are mounted on the bottom of the blank, at 6 o'clock, just like on a spinning rod.

 

The idea behind this is to eliminate the rotating torque that tries to turn a rod with top mounted guides over in your hand, when you have a heavy fish on. As I said, this started with salt water guys, so it's probably more applicable to their heavy sticks or a big Musky rod than the little Bass wands most of us are using...However some people claim this lay-out also adds casting distance and I wanted to see what all the hub-bub was about.

 

I also used mini guides on this rod. Mini guides are very tiny. They can be as small as the line-tie on your favorite lures. This means that they weigh a fraction of what a normal size set of guides do.

 

It is well know in rod building circles, but seldom mentioned by the angling press, that the accumulated weight of the line guides has a big effect on the action of a finished rod.

 

Just like when casting a heavy lure, the gross weight of the guides softens and slows the action of your rod blank. What mini guides do is to remove this excess weight from the business end of the blank, allowing the rod to function better. Again, some folks claim this results in extra casting distance...

 

I built this rod back in February and for several months I had been casting small cranks down in Arizona. However, nothing I threw or caught really tested these theory's. After this weekend, I can tell you that none of these deviations-from-the-norm hurt my casting in any way. The fact is they probably helped it. I was able to match the cast length of my friends, who were using rods up to a foot longer than mine.

 

I am totally sold on mini guides, and have been, since I built a spinning rod using these tiny guides last Fall. There is no doubt they improve the action of any rod just by reducing the dead weight hanging from it.

 

I can't say that from now on I will build nothing but casting rods with spiral-wraps. Frankly, the look takes a little bit of getting used to. However I will build more rods of this style and will encourage others to try them out.

 

I mentioned that my second guide is at 3 o'clock...I cast and reel right handed. If I was using a left hand cranking reel the second guide would be at 9 o'clock. The idea is to place the "bumper" guide on the same side as the crank handle, allowing the rod to lay flat when you put it on the deck.

Garry2R's

[mercman]

As always,an information packed report.Thanks Garry, i enjoy all of your reports, and leasrn something everytime.

 

Paul

[Moosebunk]

Some great looking pike. As for spiral wrapping on casting rods... I'll leave those tests to your experienced hands. lol

[Garry2Rs]

Before I tried the spiral layout I was skeptical too.

 

 

Now I know it works, I'm just not sure I like the look of the bumper guide sticking out like a hitchhikers thumb.

On the other hand it faces the same way as the crank handle, so never really causes any problems.

 

 

I am going to build something this week because I'm house bound waiting on a boat part. If I don't get a rod order that I'm hoping for, I will build a chunky 7ft one piece swim-bait rod with a spiral wrap to play around with.

 

My friend Curtis, from this board, recently ordered an 8ft crank-bait rod. He's coming for it early next week. We are planning a couple of days of mid-week Pike fishing. This morning we were talking about that 12 inch Cisco in the Pike stomach. It has got us both thinking about big baits...grin.

[johnnyb]

Great report as usual, Garry -- thanks for taking the time to lay it all out and let us "wrap" our heads around these "upside down" concepts of yours

 

I'm pretty sure I was using the same -- or very similar -- Husky Jerk this past weekend. Black/silver, suspending, but the finish is almost foggy on it....has a glowing quality like the skin of a chubby minnow in the water. 2 pike went absolutely nuts on it

[Garry2Rs]

Great report as usual, Garry -- thanks for taking the time to lay it all out and let us "wrap" our heads around these "upside down" concepts of yours

 

I'm pretty sure I was using the same -- or very similar -- Husky Jerk this past weekend. Black/silver, suspending, but the finish is almost foggy on it....has a glowing quality like the skin of a chubby minnow in the water. 2 pike went absolutely nuts on it

 

Hi Johnny;

That sounds like the same one alright. Glad to hear mine wasn't just yellow with age...grin.

I also tried the HJ Tennessee Shad for awhile, a Live Target Smelt that has worked well on that lake in the past, the good old HJ Blue and Chrome, and one of my friends had a Gold Husky Jerk on for awhile. However, the Silver-Black Suspending was the one they wanted!