Yesterday turned out to be a very good day for me after getting schooled by the Packernut for almost 8 hours. We were on the water by about 6:15 and he puts the first pike in the boat at around 7-7:15. A nice 7 pounder at 28", then move to the next location and continue the day. By 2:30 he has released one large mouth, one small pike, his 7 ponder and a beautiful 13 pound pike. I on the other hand and missed one 12" pike at boatside, and lifted a very lethargic 1 1/2-2 pound largemouth into the boat. I didn't even know the fish was on until I looked at the lure beside the boat. At 2:30 things turned around for me and I stuck a 38" 16 pound pike a sit attacked a spinner bait right beside the boat then made a nice energetic run. 30 minutes later, I found a 34" 11 pounder with the same spinner bait, then added two more smaller pike by the time we left. In all we finished with 7 pike and two largies.
Water temp was 63 degrees all day. Fish were all in deeper water this time, around 10-15 feet, some fell to spinner baits and some to spoons. It looks like some of the fall fish are starting to show up now. We got 4 real nice ones and had a follow to the boat by a real tanker that wouldn't quite commit to bite. We believe she had just eaten. W saw a big splash in the area she came from, just a couple minutes before the follow. I was hoping she had missed her target on the splash and would bite for us but I'm guessing she had a snack and wasn't up for a little more.
Man, when I only had one sleepy large mouth in the boat after 8 hours of fishing, I was almost ready to head for the barn. Just goes to show that sometimes it takes patients when fish for these fabulous toothy monsters.

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