Big open water pike

[Mudpout]

had an etremely interesting interesting day pike fishing on saterday that i thought i'd share.

The day started off normal, pike were stacked right on the top of drop offs, pattern established right away and fish after fish in the boat. After a few hours the bite stops, and i mean stops dead! Work the drop off top to bottom and cant hook up.

Well i decide to try my mid lake hump, i put on a 9" wildeye( looks just like a white fish at this size) and make my way out there, since i have an electric i just trolled out there, well in about 80 feet of water i get a huge hit, pull in a 10ish pike. Awkward i thought, must be moving between spots. Well i decide to try this a little more and keep a closer eye on my lowrance and am noticing baitballs 20 feet down in 60-80 feet of water. So i decide to hit a wind blown rock face, again 60-80 feet of water less then 10 feet from shore. BINGO piles of bait balls. And piles of huge pike! No hamer handles whatso ever, smallest would have been pushing 5, biggest at about 14-15. What i found quite interesting is the different coloration on these suspended fish, the spots are alot bigger and the heads way smaller compared to their body size. Probably younger fish that grew alot faster due to their fatty food. So i dont think these are my drop off fish that suddenly disappeared, but a whole new population of untouched fish that no one else on the lake is chasing, and quite possible allowing me to find grandma!


I kept on this pattern for the next 4-5 hours and it never stopped producing. And nothing came close to the numbers that 9" wildeye got. So this has got me thinking, i know these pike are chasing cisco and white fish, i gotta find the biggest damn whitefish looking bait i can find and hold on. I tried bulldawgs, charlies and believers but the profile is wrong. So my question is, what is the biggest lure you know of with a whitefish/cisco profile?

[steve-hamilton]

check out the manns croaker (hard bait - crank bait style)

it looks to us like a whitefish/drum...we have used it on quinte....but no fish yet...if a fish hits it, it's gonna be a big one!

[cprince]

Ding ding ding!!!!

This is what I'm talking about!!!!! Great report Dave and well appreciated.

What time of day are we looking at here and did you notice them heading off of this pattern later that early evening?

...And what water type are you in? Tea stained, murky, clear?

Craig

[lapointeric]

5 lb hammer handles??

I'm fishing wrong...



E

[Mudpout]

Well every time i fish this lake i start at the drop off of the river mouth first thing in the morning, and it always produces. So i'd guess by 10:30 the drop off bite was dead. I fished untill 6PM and the open water bite was still on but possibly slowing down. As for water color it looks excactly like 24/7's lake X, that clear blue/green algae stained water. As for color it doesnt matter, as long as its chartruese! I'm really surprised my orange/chart bulldawg isnt working, its killer for the 20 foot secondary drop offs i like to fish there but useless in openwater for some reason.


This lake is notorious for the fish being finicky, but when you are on the right pattern it's incredible. I've had days where vertical jigging tiger tubes on secondary shelves was the key, weeds one day, rocks the next...my biggest out of this lake at 24lbs was vertical jigging 40 feet of water at the bottom of the secondary drop off. But this open water stuff is new to me, i had always theorized that the big females would be out in the middle, but how the heck to you hunt em down? I think i'm goin to have to look into techniques used for monster lakers way up north and adapt them to this style. Next weekend i'm setting my brother up with a dipsy diver and williams whitefish and see how that goes. He doesnt have the gear to handle these 2-4Oz swimbaits


Eric, i meant they werent hammerhandles, the smallest was 5lbs. Which if you cast spinnerbaits and spoons in the weeds like the rest on this lake, 5lbs will be fish of the day easilly.

[cprince]

... Next weekend i'm setting my brother up with a dipsy diver and williams whitefish and see how that goes.

I recently bought a Dipsy Diver for that exact reason!!!

My reasoning was this; A lake I fish a lot that I call NASA Lake has hammer handles by the boat load. I catch them all in the weeds from about 2 FOW to about 15 to 20 FOW on top water and spinners. The deepest part of this little lake is about 35 feet deep. I suspect that if there are big girls in this lake they will be found there.

I am not certain what the main forage is in that lake... there are cat fish, bass, pike, crappie and monster rock bass. No perch that I have seen or cisco...

I figured on putting a spinner at the end of my Dipsy Diver.

Let us know how it goes for you... and I will post a report if and when I get on the water this week.

Craig

[Mudpout]

Craig, for this type of lake i'd really suggest pike imitating lures. I've had 2 pike on pike attacks on this lake so far this year. Big pike love to eat hammer handles, i would imagine they are a perfect fit in their bellies! Are there suckers in this lake? Muskie innovations makes an awsome sucker replica swimbait....if you can find one! Another is the same lure 24/7 showed in a post not too long ago, it's a storm wildeye, 6" i think in baby bass color. Both these are staples in my pike/muskie boxes

[cprince]

Craig, for this type of lake i'd really suggest pike imitating lures. I've had 2 pike on pike attacks on this lake so far this year. Big pike love to eat hammer handles, i would imagine they are a perfect fit in their bellies! Are there suckers in this lake? Muskie innovations makes an awsome sucker replica swimbait....if you can find one! Another is the same lure 24/7 showed in a post not too long ago, it's a storm wildeye, 6" i think in baby bass color. Both these are staples in my pike/muskie boxes

Good thinking!

I have some of those Storm Baits... hmmm... no thunder or lightning right now....



Thanks again for the advice!!

Craig

[HotelTango]

Good report, always good when you find are able to catch a boat load of decent pike.

[moonshine]

i don't see any mention of pics, did you happen to take any?

[Mudpout]

yeah, my bro snapped a few. I dont really take it out unless its worth it though. I'd rather get the fish back in the drink and my lure back in the strike zone asap. I used to be a guide in northwestern ontario and one of my biggest regrets is i barely ever took pics, clients would take them and tel me they'd send them to me, but that never happened. I once came across a lynx crossing a river, got within 5 feet of it, the damn thing was furious, i'd take that pic over any of the fishing pics ive missed thats for sure.

One of them is a clone of my avatar picture, wearing the same shirt and all lol. They are on my cam at home, i'll bring it in tommorrow and figer out how to post em. Got a nice pic of a double header too if i recall.

[cprince]

... i'll bring it in tommorrow and figer out how to post em.... G

Preemptive help.

Hope this helps!

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There is a photo section of some description on this site... but I find it easy to upload my photos to imagashack.us then follow these steps:

In your post press the "Image" button.



This will result in a tag that will look like this:


This is an image tag.

Next go to the page where you uploaded your picture. For this example I used imageshack.us but you can also do this with any picture that is on the internet, as long as "Hot Linking" was not disabled at the source site. Some use Photobucket, picasa and flickr...

At the up load page, copy the URL that they provide to directly access your uploaded photo:



Paste that link next to the IMG tag in your post:



Then press the IMG button again. This will "Close" the IMG tag... it looks the same as the first one except it has a forward slash "/" in it.



After you have done this, you will have the joy of including a picture in your post like this one I built for the example.



I think that there is a maximum number of pictures per post... I think it might be 6 or 8.. cant remember...

Good luck!

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Here is a problem one member ran into explained:

This is how you had it:



It is the spaces between whereas it should be ...jpg[/img]


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Craig

[Peppino]

Very interesting read! Thanks for sharing.

[Eli]

how far north were you fishing?

[Manny]

Lot's of good info on this thread, thanks man!!