CooK Bay report: opener and 19th

[Tacklebuster]

Woohoo, I finally figured out how to get a pic in my post. So here we go, for the pike opener my brother in-law and I decided to hit Cooks. We arrived at Harry's by 7am and the lines were in the water by 730am. The wind, chop, and temps, sure made it a bit of a challenge, but our perseverence was rewarded. Here is our first pike of the season.

By 9am we had 4 in the box, by 10am 6, and the livewell (never mind the floater) is starting to swell,

By 3pm we were 8/8. The largest was 8lbs, three 7.5 lbers, and the others ranged from 4-5.5 lbs.

After 3pm the bite came to a halt, so at 5pm we decided to troll back, and by 6pm the boat was back on its trailer. It sure felt great to be back on the softwater, everything worked, the motor started on the first turn, nothing broke, and we had a feast that evening. Also hooked into a nice 4 lb smallie, however it had several large black blotches on it. Sure hope its not that disease thats invaded the great lakes.

 

Got back home by 8pm and it was time to unload the boat and examine our wares.

 

In keeping with our tradition, we like to have a little fish fry while we are fileting the fish.

 

The result

 

The grand finally

 

Saturday May 19th

 

My brother in-law and myself, had another opportunity to hit cooks and get into some more pike action. After the openner, I was very eager to give it another shot. I used to consider Couch. more or less my stomping grounds, and my fav. body of water, but now, I am starting to like Cooks more and more. It definately helps that it cuts my travel time by and hour. We launched at Harry's, as we're getting into the lake, I realized I had forgot the net. I guess we are going to have to land anything by hand, at least we had those fish handling gloves. Had our lines in by around 7am, and had our first hit within 5 minutes...lost that one. Next hit 10 min. later, lost that one too. Uh Oh, no net, and no fish yet, well lets see. 30 min. later, next hit...this one get landed and its a decent 5 lb pike. Great, no skunk, and no hooks or pike teeth in the fingers. I noticed that compared to last week, the water temps warmed about 2-3 degrees, depending on the area. By 11am, the bite really slowed down, so we explored a bit with no results. By 2 we called it quits, and went home to enjoy the rest of the day, with family and friends, and enjoy our fresh fish fry. We ended the day, with 4 pike. The weather was great too. Hope you all had a great weekend.

 

By the way, I filleted these pike using the 5 fillet method which I learned from a video I saw on the net. I modified it slightly into 6 fillets, and for the first time I we had boneless pike fillets. So for those of you who don't like to eat pike because of the bones, try this method out, and enjoy what is IMO one of the best tasting of our fresh water fish.

Edited May 21, 2007 by Tackle Buster

[Bob Apple]

What bait were you using! How cold was it!

[Tacklebuster]

on the opener, surface temps ranged from 58-62, on the 19th, temps ranged from 60-64, depending on where you were, and the time of day

Edited May 21, 2007 by Tackle Buster

[Motorhead]

Nothing better than a nice feed of pike....

 

Great report thanks

 

Doug

[bassmaster4]

great report thanks a lot

[Smokey]

Very nice and sure looks tasty. Thanks

[TangerineDream]

Nice pike guys.... Good to see someone is into catching them!

[Puckhead]

Nice! It's on this weekend bro! They don't stand a chance...