The plan was to hit a local honey hole for some perch. We were going to be fishing in 20-25 FOW. As I had caught a nice northern the day before in deeper water, the decision was made to set tip ups along a break and jig for perch.
15 minutes into the day, our shallowest flag pops. 18 FOW. I was using big herring, so my hopes for a good pike were high.
Since my partner had never iced a pike with a tip up, as we ran over to the flag, I gave him a play by play of how I like to approach a popped flag. It actually worked, and I iced this beauty
After all the excitement, we walked back over to my Clam Nanook and remembered that our rods were still down in the water and sitting in rod holders. I grabbed another herring and headed back over to the hole which had just produced a fine northern. As I'm letting the rig back down the hole, I hear " oh, oh fish on " and see my buddy grabbing my rod and fighting a fish with his rod still in his hand. I run over and help him ice our only perch of the day. A giant 9 incher.
When I had run over to lend a hand, I left my tip up out of the hole, not set up. Figuring there was enough line to let it hit bottom, I planned to just get it up to proper depth when I came back over. As I approached the hole, I saw a small shot of line peel off the spool. I thought "Hm. That's weird. Didn't think there was that much weight on that herring." As I took the line in hand, I felt a serious tug and set the hook. Another fish on. This one weighed just over 7.5 pounds, and was released, as was our first pike.
Let 'em go, let 'em grow!!
After a very uneventful few hours, we decided to move our stuff in a bit shallower. After a while, my buddy saw one of his flags pop and we ran over. He set the hook and the fish got away. For now. I told him to grab his lowrance and a jigging spoon and come back and try and snag the fish that way. Sure enough, within a few minutes, the pike shot up and nailed a blue fox tingler spoon. This thing was peeling off drag like crazy. I got a glimpse of it, and knew he had our best fish of the day. Once we got it out onto the ice, we high fived and cheered like we had both just won a gold medal. This is the same guy who got his PB pike last weekend, a 7 pounder. In one week, he beat his PB and set a new bar. A nice fat 8.14 pounder.
Beauty of a fish!!
All three fish were released.
