2019 Pike Tally

[Fish-N-Fool]

Got another nice super fat pike today along with 3 other smaller toothy critters. This big girl was about 23 lbs. as it was short (just under 40") but super fat. Got it in a new spot jigging a spoon in 25 feet of water. I got 2 on the same spoon and a nice fat 8lber. on a deep diving white Sebile that Mark "AJ's Dad" gave me a few years ago. The spoon I got it on has caught 3 of my biggest fish this year so far.

# Pike so far this year; 139
# of fish over 10 lbs; 23
# of fish over 20 lbs; 8

[AJ's Dad]

Great looking fish! Good to see you're still on them!

[Fish-N-Fool]

So I had the honor of fishing with the man, the myth, the legend, HarleyPiker today. We hit my new hot spot to try to get Chuck his first ever monster pike. Although we failed at that I had a great time and we did both catch fish. Which is always a plus, but the bite was very slow today. I hooked on a nice fish first, which was a hair over 12 lbs on a Chartreuse Flash-N-Fool spinnerbait that I make. The next cast Chuck had a follower on a spinnerbait and we thought we had them figured out. NOT. LOL about a half hour later I hooked up on another pike about 4 ish lbs. on the same spinnerbait. So I'm thinking this is the { HOT} bait so I took it off and gave it to Chuck to fish. He threw is about an hour with zero hits. I put on another Flash-N-Fool spinnerbait in a firetiger color. I had a fallow and a hit on it but no hook ups. Chuck put on some kind of deep diving crankbait and hooked up on a smallish pike about 4 lbs. Sad to say he said that was the biggest pike he got all year. LOL A few minutes later I put on my favorite spoon that I got my last monster pike on and 2 other Pike over 40" this year and got bit OFF. :( It bit through my 80 lb. fluoro. which has only happened to me twice in the last 15 years of Pike and Muskie fishing. So i lost my favorite spoon and that I think must have been a very big fish. That's about where our day ended as the sun was getting low in the sky and the temp was dropping fast. Still had a great day and hope to get Harley piker out again soon to get him that 20+ pike he has been looking for the last 60 some years.

# Pike so far this year; 141
# of fish over 10 lbs; 24
# of fish over 20 lbs; 8

[AJ's Dad]

It's good to see that you two finally hooked up and fished together. Getting bit off on 80 lb flouro happens more often than I like to admit. IN fact it just happened to me the other day on my last trip out. I was fishing a soft plastic frog and when the line got back to the boat, it looked like it had been shaved with a razor blade down to a perfectly sharp tip. That happens a lot fishing frogs. They gulp them in pretty deep sometimes. 7 pike on my last trip gets me to 182. Once again no monsters. 10 1/2 pounds was the biggest of the day, caught by the other guy in the boat.

[Fish-N-Fool]

It's good to see that you two finally hooked up and fished together.

This was the second time Chuck and I have fished together I took him out last spring as well.

[harleypiker]

Boy, I should have checked in here Nov 9 to quickly and effectively debunk Rick's embellished first line. I probably shouldn't bring attention to it as
the other half of the world will flock to it now. Speaking of embellishments I didn't realize he got bit off by a "very big fish". Obviously Rick's eyesight is much better than mine! You deserved that for LOL at my "big" 4 lb. pike. (He said it was 5 when I released it!) But that's fishing. One good lie deserves another!
Thanks for the trip, Rick. I will now live longer. "The days spent fishing are not subtracted from the days of your life".

[AJ's Dad]

I had a big numbers day on Saturday, releasing 26 pike. That gets me to 208 for the year. Once again no monsters but I did get one at 30" and another at 33". Even those 23-26"ers are fun when they get in the fall feeding frenzy mode. When they get going it seems like you can do nothing wrong.

[AJ's Dad]

I got two more pike trips in since the last post. I released 8 on one trip and 20 on my final trip of the year. Those bring me to 236 for the year. My apologies to the duck hunters that were on shore just a short distance from where we were fishing. I let the fact that I was on my last trip of the year, and the fact that we couldn't seem to locate any fish elsewhere, impair my judgment and I was fishing entirely too close to them. I did however wait until around 2pm to move in there, and there were zero birds flying around during that last part of the day. At any rate, if you know these guys, and I'm sure they were venting to all their friends, please extend my apologies. I won't let this happen again.
It's been a strange year with very few of the larger fish showing up for me. Lack of weed beds in their normal areas, and cloudy, murky water seemed to contribute to fewer areas to target them. I hope next year will be better. Merry Christmas to everyone!!

[Fish-N-Fool]

Nice to see the site up a running again. I haven't been able to do a lot of fishing due to the weather and being a little on the broke side. I did get out today and got 3. I got a 13lb. a 9 and a 5. I had two other hits that I missed. I only fished about 2 and a half hours as the weather was fairly nice to start with but got cold later in the day, so I don't think that was too bad of a day for a short trip.
I got few other trips in as well, I got 5 on a trip including a 16lber. about 2 weeks ago and 3 on another trip last week all smaller fish. Hoping to fish X-Mas eve day as well and boost my big fish total up.
# Pike so far this year; 152
# of fish over 10 lbs; 26
# of fish over 20 lbs; 8
Biggest fish of the year 26 lbs.
Here are the 2 bigger ones from today