Well folks, nobody took me up on my offer to go pike fishing yesterday, so I had to fly solo. Seems it was a busy day for everyone. I threw my first cast of the day at 8:45 am. 6 casts in to the day I watch the spinnerbait come back to the boat and see it recieve a hundred mile an hour hit from pike that all joking aside must have been either 40" long or very close to it. That fish came on the bait, I felt a tap, then it turned and slowly moved away. Amazing how fast it was moving and then just put on the brakes. I don't think the tap was a bite, I think he just bumped it. I had never seen a fish that big move that fast. Most of them just cruise up on a bait then turn away. I ended the day with 19 pike, the largest being 29" and 6 1/2 pounds, and most in the 23 to 25" range. No big ones, but man were they agressive when they hit! On a side note, I have read somewhere that pike get to about 12" before they start eating other fish. I'm hear to tell you that that's Baloney. I was throwing a 1oz. spinner bait with a #7 willow leaf blade, and a 4/0 siwash trailer hook with a 3 1/2 to 4" split tail trailer. That bait is over 6" long when retrieved and I hooked and landed a pike that measured 8" long. Those pike are really on the feed up there. I landed that one and had another one that looked to be even smaller, right to the boat. When I went to swing him in he shook off the hook. That's pretty aggressive for an 8" fish to hit a 6" bait with the big blade on it. The BIG fish I saw was in about 8 feet of water. I caught fish in depths from 1 foot to 10 feet, but most of them were in 2 to 3 foot range. They were not particular. They hit everything I threw at them. Spinnerbaits, spoons, and soft plastic frogs. If you always wanted to catch a pike, now is the time to go up and do it. If I had it to do over again, I might consentrate on the 8 to 10 foot depth and try to find more bigger fish. Come to think of it, I do have it to do over again, and I think I'll do it again next weekend! Sorry for the lack of photo but when you fish alone, it's tough. Happy fishing!

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