Amazing day fishing for pike on Erie

[ch312]

i arrived on friday to find the bay was dead calm and i was lucky to be able to go 42 mph both ways. motored out and setup the boards and trolled for a while with no luck, so i tried long lining and riggers without a sniff. 4 hours of trolling and no fish wasn't looking good.

 

the white you see is a couple hundred swans. you'll have to excuse the phone quality pics as my camera was one of the thing's i had forgot about.

 

 

i got tired of trolling so i got ready to cast for the hundreds of unknown species of fish surfacing nearby that turned out to be gar from 16"-36". after an hour of trying different lures without success i gave up on that too. it was still cool seeing that many in one small area.

 

next up was casting towards weeds on a drop off and i had one follow the first cast. after trying multiple baits i was getting follows but no takers, so i switched to an old 8-9" believer and nailed one first cast. i caught a few more fish, but i was still having too many follows. i also tried a super shad rap and got a couple on that too. i tried tossing plastics to the followers, but the water was so calm the fish would spook as i tried to set my rod down to switch.

 

next up was a 7" original rapala, the lure of the day. the majority of fish came on this one, as you can see...

 

 

best action? cast far and reel literally as fast as possible while imparting a jerking action with each "jerk" being like a hook set into a trophy fish. then, after 5-6 jerks i'd slow it down and use a normal jerkbait retrieve. this is when 75% of the fish hit.

 

 

20+ pike from 20"-36" landed

8-10 lost with one brute that was honestly 50"+

20-30 follows to the boat

 

believe it or not, at one point i caught 3 fish with 3 consecutive casts and lost a fish on the fourth. the huge scarred up fish that i had right beside the boat spit the lure while i was going for the net. when this one hit i knew instantly that this fish was in a different league than the rest and it was disappointing losing what would have been my PB.

 

the action was hot right until i forced myself to leave just after the sun dropped below the horizon. i never would have thought that big baits fished very fast would be the ticket in 42-44 degree water, but they simply weren't interested in anything under 6" or slower than "rip their lips off" fast []

 

the action was too hot to get pics of them all, but here's a few

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

since there's no pics of me for size reference, the net is 26" across. it doesn't look like it, but the fish in the last pic was 34" or so.

Edited November 18, 2012 by ch312

[Christopheraaron]

Nice! i know that there was another board member out that way yesterday and by the sounds of it couldn't quite figure them out as well as you, good job!

[flippin]

Wow good job at getting pike.

however in your 2nd pic look closely to the pic. From the floating weed to the right and just in front of your net..I'm not smoking anything but...Sure looks like a childs face in that pic!!!Seriously take a good look...You can make out the whole face an part of the shoulders, kinda ''freaky'' fflip

[ch312]

Wow good job at getting pike.

however in your 2nd pic look closely to the pic. From the floating weed to the right and just in front of your net..I'm not smoking anything but...Sure looks like a childs face in that pic!!!Seriously take a good look...You can make out the whole face an part of the shoulders, kinda ''freaky'' fflip

 

you sure about that one?

 

i just looked for a couple minutes and can't see anything?

[Live2fish85]

Hahaha I can't see it either.

 

Nice work on the pike. That is a killer day.

[flippin]

whoops I meant the 4th picture down, not the 2nd. flip

[Joeytier]

That sounds like a ridiculous amount of fun.

[ch312]

That sounds like a ridiculous amount of fun.

 

it was the best day of fishing i've ever had to be honest. it's going to be hard to top it, but i'm making another trip this week with some new lures and sharper hooks. hopefully they build the rapala's stronger these days, that one was old and didn't fair too well.

Edited November 19, 2012 by ch312

[northernpike56]

more pike than I've caught this year

[Rich]

You got to the bay on a freak fall feedup day. Its rare to get those days in november, but when you do it really puts a new perspective on how many pike are really out there. Good work Scott, hope next time you land a big girl!