Solid day for pike

[donw]

After a really slow start to the pike season, at least personally, finally found a pattern that worked just a couple of days ago (before Sunday's rain).
Was fishing a stretch of the Rideau that I have not had much experience with, but with very little boat traffic at this time of year there was lots of opportunity to go hunting and see if I could figure out where the critters have been hiding.
No electronics on board my kayak, so it's strictly hunt and peck.
Up to this trip, I had been ripping baits along pretty quickly to get any bites at all. But on this morning, a slower roll with larger spinnerbaits seemed to be doing the trick. Boated several nice fish up to about 5 lbs., and lost a couple of others. The pike still were not slamming the lures ... they seem to be coming up behind and inhaling them, so a bit of patience was needed when they hit to ensure that they got the hook set.
I missed as many as I boated, which is rare for pike.
Will be heading out again a bit later this week to a similar area to give them another try. Hopefully the pattern will hold a bit longer even after the heavy rains.

[Jul0682]

Congrats on the pike and an even full fishing as well.. haven't been lucky so far getting pike yet I'm fishing a new body of water on the Rideau close to the airport so always a bit of patience comes with new locations..

Congrats again.

Cheers

[CBB]

Congrats on a nice pike

[donw]

Hey Jul0682

I hear you. When you are working new water it always takes a bit of time to get used to it and find the areas that produce fish. When you say "airport", do you mean the Ottawa airport? If so, while there are still good numbers of fish in that stretch of river, boy it gets a lot of fishing pressure. So, the fish are probably a bit more educated, and tougher to catch.
Hang in there.
Best of luck!

[fatluke]

Looks like a nice slimer there Don.

You're going to have to work on those selfies though. lol.

The timer function on a camera, or the timer on a cell phone camera is a solo angler's best friend!!

[drksthr]

nice catch... i find theyve been hitting on slow rolling spinnerbaits so far this season.. haven't had much luck when speeding up the presentation... also i agree with you on not slamming them. the few ive caught so far have just inhaled the lure... the only one that i caught slamming the lure was when i brought a crankbait through a school of 100+ sunfish.. mind ya it was on a 5' ultra light and 4lbs fluorocarbon so that may have been exaggerated because of that.. lol