Northern Pike

The first thing that impressed me about this creature was it's total lack of fear. I noticed it almost immediately. Most fish will shy away from you or your boat as the lure is brought closer. Not these guys. If they haven't taken the fly during the retrieve they seem to be perfectly happy just staying by your side. Similarly, they won't flush at your approach along the bank. They simply hold their ground. They are the top predator in their realm and act like it.

To me this fish is deceptively beautiful. Dad used to tell me that all fish are. But this one is exceptional. No, they don't glow like a dorado or have the grand dorsal of a sailfish. But their design and color are remarkable nontheless. At first appearance, they look like a barracuda. But the snout doesn't really come to a point. As Alex said, they look like ducks.

The other quality that became apparent was their agressiveness. They wouldn't run down their prey like most gamefish. Instead, they would follow slowly follow our flies coming closer and closer. Then there was a lightning burst and the fly was simply gone.

We soon learned to take advantage of this character trait. We found that if you could spot a pike all you had to do is dangle the fly in front of it's snout and then came the lightning strike. How could it be so dumb, I thought. Actually, it wasn't an act of stupidity at all. The powers of concentration of this animal is incredible. It just focuses on it's prey with all it's being and simply blocks out everything else. When it sees those feathers slowly undulating in front of it's snout it simply can't resist. Even with you standing over it and it being fully aware of it. This is an animal that's built to kill.

But the most fun we had with pike were with floating mouse flies. These didn't work as well as subsurface streamers but the take was worth all the casting. I had one pike take my mouse and miss. I was so excited I pulled the fly off the water and slapped it back down. This time an enormous swirl as the pike smashed it in anger. But I was to anxious and pulled it before he took it well. I think we were both getting worked up by this time. I slammed the fly down and I swear to you: This fish came flying out of the water and came down head first on top of the mouse. Really, the fight wasn't important after that.




The second picture I'm including here is to show the kind of habitat these fish like. Most of the time they are either in those weeds of a foot or two away from them. We weren't aware of this at the start and would cast away from shore. It wasn't until a few hours later that Alex looked into the grass he was about to step into and saw a body. We found pike up to 3 feet long in those weeds. Somehow they snake their way through those fronds and just wait. I would have to say that most of the takes were from fish that shot out of the reeds in a rush to take the fly. From this we learned to retrieve the fly a foot away from the edge and be ready. Often times they would rush back into the grass as fast as they came out. Following a fly through the grass is usually a futile thing as they just chew their way through the line.

And speaking of teeth, they are impressive. They don't grow from the jaw. Rather they seem to grow from the roof of the mouth looking like stalagtites in a cave. We caught a lot of pike on this trip but I can't say I ever became comfortable handling this fish. You're up to your waist in water as you bring it to your side. A 10 inch head full of teeth that could easily just cut you to pieces if it had a mind to do so. It slashes around you as you try to work your hand around it's back. We were never bitten, however, and nobody we met at the lodge had it happen to them either.




This last image is of the area we stayed at. The name of the mountain this shot was taken escapes me but Pompano probably knows. The Brooks River winds it's way between two massive lakes. The small lake in the distance is what the the locals call "the beaver pond" but which we called "Pike Lake". Nobody cares about Pike Lake. Everyone comes to see the bears. The stretch of river directly above Alex's unsmiling face (he's a teenager, after all) is the mecca of all wildlife photographers. The water drops about 6 feet there and the grizzlies are waiting.

Now please join me with your stories about pike or any others you wish to share.

That last look brings back memorys,why don,t we ever see pic,s of the old man with a fish?
Rob

A truly great post, Igor.

Kudos, bravissimo, salud....You've captured the exuberence of youth and the startling first-met ferocity of the pike...a real surprise to first-timers. ('Jacks' in my neck of the woods.) Those are experiences that we will remember fondly when it's time for Alex and others to take thier sons and daughters on these rights of passage.

I'm too busy packing for a hunting/fishing trip right now, but will gladly contribute to this thread later. Hopefully with some nice photos.

In the meantime, I will repost this old favorite reminder of youth and adventure in the northern woods.

The smiles on Jason's face have lasted from then til now.

and now for the bad news

Igor, I can't believe that you would wear that many clothes while fishing. Must be way up north.

That's exactly what my mom sez!

Nena

Yes, Davis Lake is the main culprit

Brooks River Rainbows

This one's for you, Rob.

The trout in this river grow to a prodigious size. I caught many trout in the 22 inch size every day. And after a few days on the river you can spot the 25 inchers easily and go after them.

Plastic bead eggs - that's all you need. They're feeding on the sockeye roe and will pounce on the stuff. The more seasoned veterans would fish with dries but the beads were good enough for us. That's a 5 wt rod you see in the second picture to give you some perspective.

Paulina, trout are delicious prepared in your manner but unfortunately no trout are allowed to be kept in this river. All were released.

Quote:

Originally posted by Pescador Igor, I can't believe that you would wear that many clothes while fishing. Must be way up north.

Do you remember that television series with Tim Allen as a toolman or some such thing. There's a character that's always behind the fence giving advice to Allen in times of need. You never get to see his face though. Well, I've decided to pattern myself after him at nomads.

And this last one's for you, Paulina. We didn't have any whale bones to pose with but I did the next best thing with this pair of moose antlers.

By the way, I couldn't believe how heavy those things are. The ones on the ground must have weighed 50 lbs. Alex tried to lift them but finally just gave up and we went for the shorties.

Big bows are a wonderful fish,while reading your post I,ve had flash backs to my time with Dad fishing great places up north and there were a bunch.

His first love was stream fishing for eastern brook,in those days our equipment was metal telescope rods and single action bait-casting reels.

After a time he discovered that the real big fish lived in lakes so we took to trolling,flatfish for the bows and big spoons for the lake trout,never used a motor only rowed he said they made to much noise for hours he would row,when I got a little bigger it was my turn to row,I loved it.

On a hike in on the Clearwater river we discovered fly fishing by accident,bait was dead but the fish were rising for something,just by chance he had a couple of flys and tried one,fish on and on a old metal rod,and that started something new to us.

Speaking of flys we used to troll with them in BC for KAMs before I moved to Calif we had fished such places as
Clearwater river
Madison
Bitteroot
Snake
Yellowstone
Fire hole
Just to name a few,this will ring a bell with some of you I,m sure

We lived on lake Pend Oreille for three years so we fished alot,this where He caught he,s biggest rainbow 12# it was,I,ve found some pic,s of those days and will try and post.

I,ve cherished those days with my dad,what adventures we shared,thx Igor for reminding me of them.
Rob

My DAD,no fish was safe with him around.

Who can resist threads about kids and fishing? Not moi. Here's the old man (not so old then) and three of my four, the girls Lisa and Coleen and my son Dirk. The boy in the back is Marshall, Dirk's roommate at Cal Poly SLO. That day we learned what a big thresher shark can do to a yellowfin. See the front end of the yellowfin hanging on the rack:



Here's Dirk fighting his first striped marlin at Punta Pescadero:



Here's Dirk's first marlin, tagged and released. Note the tag in the foreground:



Dirk with a nice jurel at San Francisquito:

I almost forgot. Here's how we introduced our little one Jesse to fishing. In spite of this, he ended up liking it:

Thanks for all the fishing pictures. Send more.

Quote:

Originally posted by baitcast My DAD,no fish was safe with him around.

Hopefully they'll come to realize that these fishing trips are about more than just fishing.

"Can we go fishing?"

..was probably my first full sentence.

2 generations later it's still pretty common.

A couple of my fishin partners.

Northern Pike and Walleye Waters

1951 - My Dad getting fish fillets ready for that favorite of any Far North fishing trip.....walleye shore lunch.



2001 - I'm in a rut fifty years later at the same Far North lake..making the same walleye shore lunch.

Thank you for sharing pictures of your dad, pompano. And before I go I wanted to perhaps take you back down memory lane to that canoe trip you took as a young man through the canadian wilderness with your best friend.

Nena, the vertical is the one I wrote about that seemed to capture the mood of our stay on the island. It was taken from our 'dining area'.

Up North - is like Down Baja

Igor, that canoe trip I took with my lifelong amigo was truly one of our epic trips. We began doing 'let's go!' trips together in our early teens and eagerly read everything we could on the outdoor subject of 'adventure in the wilds'. Eric Severeid "Canoeing with the Cree" was and still is one of my favorite reads, along with "Spirit of the North" by Sigurd Olson, who I also had the honor to meet in the 70's, plus Farley Mowatt's. '"Lost in the Barrens', People of the Deer, A Whale for the Killing, The Franklin Expedition, Perry at the Pole, Alexander Pope's diary, etc"...all sit in my library amid other volumes of early exploration and survival in the Far North.

Frequently, during a quiet moment of contemplation on a canoe trip, Olson would read brief passages of poetry and prose scrawled on small scraps of paper for inspiration and peace of mind. Similarly, Spirit of the North is the ideal wilderness companion, passionate, authentic, and deeply reverent of the natural world. I am quite sure it would be of interest to anyone who loves the beauty of Baja, also.





Your voyage with Alex brings back many memories of great trips with my father..canoeing, rowing, running rapids, portaging, and being taught the finer points of catching fish with a fly instead of a worm...why not to take more than one fools hen for supper...long days and short nights watching the aurora borealis with loons and wolves for music. Hard to describe these father-son events, but they are life-shapers...and savers.

Along with our early trips to Baja, my childhood friend Randy and I have traveled the world together over the last 50 plus years since our first forays. That particular canoe trip across 1100 miles of wilderness Canada just confirmed our passion to see more of nature's wilderness before it disappeared. Each year since then we have alternated choices on where to explore. Together like modern-day Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, we've trudged the Kyber Pass, ate bread baked in camel dung ovens, been kicked by mules, chased by demons..and other fun stuff like that....



This is the duo..from college days to early signs of dufferage. We are now looking a lot like our late fathers....

.

Minnesota's Rainy River and other canoe routes:

Ken, your description on canoeing must have put you in the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness and Quetico Park. A truly magical place where no motors are allowed..only canoes. I have paddled it many times and thrill to the fight ofsmallmouth on a clear reef. I liked it so much as a child that later I got a cabin on the Rainy River in NE Minnesota...part of an active canoe route from eastern US and Canada to the western and northern routes that the early French voyageurs paddled in the fur trade days of 16th-18th century America. Amost every day in the summer some eager canoeists paddle by our riverside cottage on their way to thier own adventures. River otters and Canadian honkers keep them company. Lucky buggers, I think I'll stow away next summer.

The Ontario border is just across the river from our place....an entirely open border..defined by respect and good manners.

A great place to teach grandkids how to fish is right off that dock. Right after the Sunday paper, that is...


Walleye dinners!...ummm. Berries like you said..I make a terrific Dutch oven 'compage' for breakfast with wild blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries. But hey, everything tastes great on a remote northern island, right? Shore Lunch is my middle name!

This is what's on the menu..Walleye!


And..if you are lucky like we were...you will find a convenient convenience on your island! What?..maybe not so lucky for the gals? Sweet clover planted here would do wonders!



Speaking of eating...I got a huge kick out of this billboard in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Toontown). This would NOT go over well at PETA headquarters!


Igor..remember my secret tundra fishing hole?


Trout pond building plans at work Up North...first this:

Then this:

.
Thanks again Igor, for this great thread and now much fun it is to take a kid fishing. And especially for those fighting northern pike! Puts a grin on everyone's face!


Even us older kids...



[Edited on 10-31-2008 by Pompano]

What a fun thread this continues to be!

This fathers and sons thing -

Igor - The bottom half of your face and the bottom half of Alex's face match perfectly! Well, except for the mustache.

Baitcast - If that little boy is you - the one with the handsome father - well, there's quite a resemblance there, too.

Pompano - You were a cutie of a kid and I so much see you in your dad's face.

And Ken Bondy - Well, Ken, I can barely notice your kids for looking at the younger version of you. You were a bit of a hottie - no?!
Actually the kids look very much like their dad - whole buncha good looking kids.

Igor - The canoe pix are really beautiful. The vertical one that we'd talked about - it does seem to carry a mood most pleasant and tranquil, while the canoe adds that sense of adventure. I especially like the bark on that tree. And of course that 2nd canoe picture is a favorite of mine, also.

3digitKen - Thanks for sharing such good memories of your canoing adventure. It sounds heavenly.

And now I see that Roger has added more words and pix on another trip.... posted while I'm typing this. Need to get back and catch up with that one.

With the possibility of sounding like Tiny Tim.... thank you, contributors, thank you every one.

Nena

Wow! I get to work this morning, turn on the computer, and see this. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Roger, for a great post. There is so much information there it will take me a while to digest it.

A couple of things though:

This thread really shows how valuable pictures become with age. Just the aging process itself makes an image grow more and more valuable. I see that in your pictures, and Ken's, and baitcast's. Those old images are now priceless. And yet when you took them they just seemed so unimportant. It just goes to show you how important it is to just go around and shoot what seem to be meaningless pictures. I have realized this recently and am no longer storing my 'pretty pictures' in our albums as I know they won't withstand the test of time.

I really enjoyed your recount of your lifelong fishing buddy. I think a very good thread would be just that: fishing buddies. Everyone seems to have them. I've got a lifelong friend, Vlad, whom I've known and fished with since I was 11. We met in the back of truck on the way home from a scouts meeting back then. During our lives we've been friends, fought to the point of not speaking to one another for 4 years, and back to friendship - and always the fishing was there. Even our kids I think have finally realized that our friendship has been really special. I know that in these next few years Alex will start such a friendship and am always wondering who it will be.

Warning: The fact that your pike is bigger than ours has not gone unnoticed.

Quote:

Originally posted by Pompano Even us older kids...

Ouch!

I am told that you can somehow take a picture supporting your fish with a doll's hands and really impress friends.

Excelent thread! Made me dig around to find a couple to post from one of our summer canoe trips into northern Ontario, up near Jame's Bay.
We's usually catch some Walley or Pike during the day, fillet them out and put the fillets into some Zip Lock baggies.
Then put them under the seat (in the shade) on the bottom of the canoe, so the coolness of the water would keep them till dinner tme.
Better than Walley though, was the one time we caught what the Canadian's call "Speckled Trout" up one of the rivers feeding into a large lake. Darn they were good!

Almost forgot: here's a "Proper Privy" that we thought would be great if you had company coming! LOL

Igor...

I keep coming back to your thread and reviewing all these exuberant posts. They are the 'lure' that makes this place more fun to visit..at least for me....adventure, family, quality times, good nostalgia.

Now as the those huge NORTHERN PIKE..(the Baja Sharks Up North)....picture yourself in this situation:

You are casting from your tippy canoe..
...you get a good strike!..
... and bring this nice 8lb pike alongside, being careful to not rock too much...

..then ALL OF A SUDDEN GODZILLA EMERGES...

and inhales your catch....brrrrrrrr.



Where we will be fishing this summer, this actually happens frequently. Swim at your own risk...
.

World Record Pike? Who knows?

Yes Igor, that monster had all of us pike (and musky) fishermen green with envy. Guessing that one went to mid-50's at least. My biggest pike was a 30lber I took while canoeing the Churchill River. It followed my Mad Mouse surface bait back to our canoe and it really excited/scared me when I saw that huge head gliding along right underneath my lure...then WHAMMO! Oh, yeah, Alex will have a ball with those.

Actually, that opportunity of netting both predator and prey fish presents itself quite often with pike. They're a lot like certain birds, easy to lure. You can tell Alex that if you spend enough time at pike fishing in Canada or Lake of the Woods inlets and flows that this event will happen. Just have a camera ready! That's a 36" pike this big guy was trying to eat.

On canoe trips through pike waters, I've seen these bruisers take swimming mallards (ducklings are just a mere snack).

Hah..I loved 'Grumpy Old Men', a great comedy about ice fishermen on Mill Lacs in Minnesota. That was/is my background in ND, MN, and Canada. If you have never had the experience of fishing through 2 feet of ice, sitting in a icehouse in the middle of a full-blown northern blizzard, wondering if the sun will ever appear again, then you are A LUCKY GUY! This is a crazy sport and centers mostly on what wierd contraption you can nail together for your fishhouse. More a social event than about fishing, the houses get clustered together, snowplows create streets, fish-name streetsigns are erected, some folks run street lights from their gensets,TV antennas grow from icehouse roofs, pot luck dinners, weddings, (a couple of funerals)...all in all, it's a real hoot..
.



Walleye is the prize fish in this type of fishing. This new Saskatchewan record walleye was caught at Lake Tobin by this Catholic priest. He credited his catch to saying a fishing prayer. If you plan to do much more Canada lake fishing, I would highly recommend this lake on the Saskatchewan River flowage..one of the best regions for record walleye and pike. Also great hunting..ducks, geese, sandhills, moose, elk, deer, bear. I go there every September-October.
.




While walleye are hands-down the most sought after fish for the pan, these pike are also prized. This is a smallish one I pulled through the ice in a 1971 blizzard that kept us snowbound in the fishhouse for 4 days.
.


One of my heaters was propane-fed and it was sooo cold that the propane would not gasify, but laid as a liquid at the bottom of the tank. The boiling point of propane is -42 Celsius or -43 F. It got to -60 F during that storm....without any yuppy wind chill factor. Brrrrr..now that's cold! Good thing I built that fishhouse to withstand bitter temps. 12' X 20' X 8' high, carpeted, 2" insulation, 2 sources heat (one wood-burner), poker table, 12 fishing holes, 1 spearing hole, 2 full-size bunk beds, and plenty of provisions. Refridgeration was NOT needed.

.

Same info here, Igor. I get a lot of fishing mail and it seems that fish has "Frequent Flyer Miles", Its from Europe, 3 or 4 Canadian provinces, and most of the Mid-west and northern states!! Lots of folks swear that monster pike was caught on Rainy River, Ontario (where I hava a cottage), others say Michigan, or Saskatchewan, or Holland, or Italy, or Norway..the list goes on. You know how the story-telling goes. Wherever it came from, it's remarkable. The stuff of legend.
Fisheries Canada said that the fish was caught in Rainy lake Ont. they did not know if the fish was caught in the Canadian side or the American side but it was documented and the wieght was 45.6 lbs. The North American record for northern pike caught was in the state of New York at 46.2 lbs. In June, Stan Pokrywka of Regina Sask. caught a 47.5 lbs. 55.5 inch northern in Miround lake near Pelican Narrows. If you want more information on this catch go to Saskatoon Star Phoenix july 8 2008 and look under 'Lunker lives to fight another day.'

Musky are slightly different than pike. Here's an easy chart to study.
.

.
What musky look like:

.

.
Here's the pike colorations:
.


And some of the lures you use to catch musky...AND large pike.

.
This photo shows typical big pike (and musky) habitat to check out. Weedy bays off deep water and river inlets.
.

The one huge difference between pike and musky is thier location. Generally: Musky are found in southern Canada from Ontario eastwards. In the USA from NW Minnesota eastwards and as far south as Ohio. Some other stocking efforts are paying off in western and southern areas.
.
Now...did someone mention that best tasting fish of all...THE WALLEYE?
.
A long time ago...

and nowadays..still my favorite eating fish. And a lot of fun to catch!


[Edited on 3-19-2009 by Pompano]