I took a friend from work out for some pike fishing yesterday. He had never caught pike before and wanted to see what was so special about them.
With temperatures expected in the mid to high 90's I decided to be on the water early. We started fishing at about 5:15am in the chain lakes, and the fish were in the mood for breakfast. We left the water at noon.
The rookie started the day with the first fish, his first ever pike. It was a nice fat 27 1/2"er that weighed just under 6 lbs. He had missed 3 bites before hooking up and already understood my attraction to pike fishing. He was so impressed by the fact that he got to see the fish savagely attack his lure and how hard they strike, his jaw dropped and all he could say was "Wow, now I see why you think catching these things is so cool". I had told him to not be shy on the hook set as pike have a pretty hard mouth. His first hook set was remenisant of his trout fishing background. A sweet little tug on the rod. I laughed and told him he had to set the hook like a man. His next 2 missed strikes were close to the boat and resulted in the lure flashing past his head and landing on the other side of the boat. My response was, "Now that's the kind of hook set you need. Strike #4 got him his first fish.
He must have had a better guide than I did yesterday because he spanked me, catching 13 pike on his maiden pike trip. I did happen to get 8 of my own and claimed the biggest fish of the day at 33".
We released 21 pike on the day, 19 of them by 8:30. We switched lakes and picked up a couple more but by then the water temps were coming up and the fish moved deeper and a little harder to find. The diffrent lake didn't help much either. I would imagine if we had stayed with the first lake we could have done much better on the numbers of fish caught.
Fish were relating to weed beds and most were caught in about 6 or 7 feet of water. Spinnerbaits did best but we got them on spoons and frogs as well. Water temps we saw were 70 in the morning, and got as high as 78 degrees. It was a great day on the water, even if we did have to cut it short.

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