Northern Canadian Pike are reputed to be among the wiliest fish around the globe. You can be sure that the huge Northern Canadian Pike at the end of your rod, thrashing away, is giving you among the hardest and most challenging catches you have ever experienced in your angling career as an adventurous fisherman.
These fish sure know where to hide and how to fight. Where and how do you find them throughout the fishing season?
If you can find the Pike in a less belligerent mode or when you are fishing areas of lakes that where the water is “stained”, a prop bait like a Splash-Tail that will sputter across the surface will cause the Pike to make that stab. Pop baits can also be deadly when the killer Pike are resting beside isolated forms of cover such as giant deadheads poking their nose above the waters.
If you wait until the water is good and cold, such as may well occur in the late fall season or in the early springtime you may well have great luck with the Pike of the seas. The Pike can best be found around rock structures. You might well try to catch a jerkbait during these cold water spring or late fall time fishing expeditions. The jerkbaits are not snagless, but you can throw a hard jerk, if there are only a few feet of water over the top of those deep weeds.
Some fishing experts will recommend soft jerkbaits rigged Texas style. If the water vegetation is relatively sparse these can be deadly especially if there are plenty of open pockets on the lake water. If you have to retrieve a hard jerkbait, try to do so as close to structure as possible. Wind the lure down and jerk it three or so times and pause. Generally the colder the water gets the longer you should wait. Nick the tops of the weeds, scrape the rocks and tick the logs and stumps. Pike usually strike when the when the lure suspends, rises slowly or starts its next series of jerks.
If your fishing trip takes you during the mid summer time periods – you will promptly find that the Northern Pikes go deep and deeper. Troll hard jerkbaits around rocky main lake points and over the tops of mid lake humps. Contour trolling behind three way rigs can be among the most deadly hot weather tactics for attracting and landing those “big ones”. You can also try rigging a large soft 9 inch Shad on a stout 5 offset hook without any other additional weight. Let it flutter toward bottom after casting. Then hop. Pop, twitch and pause your lures continually to imitate a baitfish that is more than in trouble and indeed may be in its death throes. Along weed edges swim the lure through the grass deflecting it off any stalks that you can feel. Do the same when you are fishing an open corridor of lake water between the tops of deep and deeper weeds and the surface of the water? Let if fall and then let it pop back to the water’s surface.
All in all Northern Canadian Pike fish are among the wiliest fish that you will run across in your fishing expeditions – whether it be at any time during the year – spring, summer or fall.
Word count: 560