The Packernut and I hooked up with former poster Lucious, an old friend that now lives in the Idaho Falls area.
You know, it never fails. Whenever I'm pike fishing, and there is a bass tournament going on at Cda Lake, I manage to catch a nice bag of both species of bass. I suppose that wouldn't happen if I entered them though. This trip was no exception. I checked the Idaho tournament schedule the night before and knew it would be a little busy at the boat ramp. Last time we fished during one of these tourneys, we had to divert to another ramp. This time we got there a little earlier. When we arrived at the ramp at 4:45 am., we were 4th in line with about 7 parking spots left. We launched and started fishing by 5:00. At about 5:10 while the bass guys headed across the lake to their morning meeting, I stuck the first fish of the day on a 5" pike lure. A nice fat 4lb 7oz largemouth. Not the species we were after but pretty cool to see her jump a couple of times and try to shake the lure that had a treble hook stuck in both her top and bottom lips. A few minutes later I landed a feisty 10"er on the same 5" pike lure. We found no pike at the first location so we moved on. At spot #2, Lucious broke the ice with the first pike of the day. A nice 26-27"er. He also landed the second pike of the day, a bit shorter but non the less it was a pike. I couldn't help but notice the smile on his more than compettive face as he proclaimed he had now taken a 2 pike to none lead on us. A short time later, I answered back with another hook up. Yep, another largemouth. This one weighed in at 5 lb 2 ozs. but still wasn't a pike. OK enough of the play by play.
At the end of the day the talley was 2 pike and 1 bass for Lucious, and 6 pike and 4 bass for mysefl, I also released a nice 3 lb smallie. I guess you could say the Packernut had the most action for the day, as he got the pleasure of netting all of the fish caught. Unfortunately that didn't give him time to land any of his own. That's OK, he'll get back at em next time.
Biggest pike of the day was a 34 1/2"er that only weighed in at 10lb 2ozs. I guess that's why she was eating spinner baits. She must have been hungry.
Spinner biats were most effective again this trip and the fish were in 8-12 feet of water. We saw temps of 70-76 degrees throughout the day.

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