Big Pike

[Fishing_High]

Can anyone give me some tips or tacticts to find some big pike this time of year. Going up for the last time this weekend fishing a smaller chain of lakes south of the whitefish. It looks like a rainy Friday and Sunday leaving Saturday the last real good day for me to fish. Any help would be appreciated.

[steffanf]

Wish I could help you and I posted a similar question here about a week ago. Apparently, this is a rather unknown subject or one that is top secret in the fishing community.

For me, summer presentations still seem to work... but with less frequency.

-Gregg B.

[mazzilin19]

Try posting in the Brainerd area forum.

[Fishing_High]

Yea thanks I did that I got a little info that should prove helpful.

[TUMBLEWEED]

I like windy,overcast conditions!! My go to bait for these

times are big spoons. The best color I have found for

overcast skies are hammered brass with the fluorescent

orange stripes. Find shallow weedlines with nearby

deeper water. The right speed is important too. I like'it on the fast side, as long as your bait is about

midway in the water column. Try to find the side of the lake taking a beating from the waves. Zero in on the

weedline and deeper water locations, then troll

through them. Live bait rigs during the calmer days

in these same locations can also be good.

It helps to know the lakes, maybe you can check out aome

spots with lakemaps prior to setting out. There was a

good post somewhere around here that had the

"wind-cast" on it. I have caught and seen caught

some real bruisers when it gets rough out. An old

neighbor of ours on the Whitefish chain, who was of

finnish descent, said it was better rough, cause

there was more oxygen in the water? Don't know about

that, but they do bite good when its windy and

overcast...

[Maximum12]

Tumbleweed gives some good advice, especially the part about finding weeds adjacent to deep water. I, too, prefer big spoons, although I favor hammered silver.

One other thing I've noticed is to vary where you're at in the water column. The last big pike I caught was from bouncing a big spoon off of a sandy bottom, about fifteen feet of water, adjacent to a weed bed that came up to about three feet of water. I did this after my buddy caught a decent sized fish doing the same thing. Resulted in a 42" bruiser. I couldn't get both my hands around his head. Thickest fish I've ever seen!

[Fishing_High]

Nice Leaving work in an hour to go after them I'm so pumped... to bad it my last weekend on the open water.

[steffanf]

Let me know how you do... I was out this last Saturday and only got one big hit... and miss. I'm thinking about calling it quits for this season as well.

-Gregg B.

[Fishing_High]

Hey just got back we had some luck we mostly used lindy rigs and minnow and set up outside the channel with the current flowing into caught a few pike in the 28-30 inch range my buddie had one really big strike that bit him off thought that would be the nicer one but never got a chance to see.

[steffanf]

Thanks for the reply... me thinks I shouldn't quit just yet then...

-Gregg B.

[Fishing_High]

Yea I don't want to yet either I'm going to try to get on of my friends go get up to the cabin next weekend or the one after it will be cold but I still want to hook into a real nice one.