11/8/15 Northerns in November?

It all started with a series of text messages: Mike: Any interest in fishing this Sunday? Me: What did you have in mind? Mike: One last Pike trip? Now there's a thought. I had never really considered fishing for Pike this late in the fall. What would it be like? Would the fish be catchable? There's only one way to find out. The good new is that the weather has been very moderate. Kelly was up for going as well so we planned on fishing from a canoe for the day. We decided on a 10 o'clock meet time as the forecast called for a low of 28 the night before. At least give the sun a chance to get up and give it time to warm up a bit. Sunday arrived and Mike, Malachi, Kelly, and I met up at the Elkhart River. We set our shuttle and managed to get on the river by 10:30. The temperature when we started was a balmy 44 degrees. Despite the chilly weather and water, we had high hopes for the day. Kelly and I started off throwing what I would consider some of my 'traditional' Pike lures, spinners and swim baits. We floated and fished through great looking water for a couple hours and never even saw a fish. After a few hours with no luck on the Pike, Kelly and I switched over to fishing for Smallmouth. I had Kelly throwing a jig and twister tail combination and I was throwing a fluke on a jig head. Maybe slowing down was going to be the key today. Within 10 casts we had our answer. I was moving the fluke along very slowly with a jerk pause retrieve. All of a sudden I felt the tell tale thump of a fish hitting the lure. I set the hook and was extremely excited to have hooked my first fish of the day. As it approached the boat, I saw that it was a Pike and a nice one to boot! Unfortunately the other thing I noticed is that it had the fluke completely inside it's mouth. With 8 pound flouroclear on that rod I knew what was coming next. The fish made a run and before I knew it, my line was broken and the fish was gone. Although it sucked to lose the only fish hooked after several hours of fishing, it gave me a good insight into what might work for us the rest of the trip. I quickly tied on a leader and another jig and fluke onto my rod and set kelly up with a leader and a Rapala X-Rap. Kelly, having never fished a lure such as the X-Rap, was a little unsure of how to use it. I gave her a quick tutorial and showed her how to work the lure. After a few casts her retrieve looked good and she was getting good action out of the lure. The fish must have thought so too. Literally minutes after switching to the X-Rap, Kelly had her first Pike of the day hooked up. It was a stout fish in the mid 20-inch range. When I got it in the net I could see that it had T-boned the lure and was clamped down on it as if it's life depended on it. I had a lot of trouble unhooking it. I ended up getting my thumb cut pretty badly by the Pikes teeth. I shouldn't have been stubborn and just used spreaders to start with to get the fishes mouth open. It eventually came unhooked and escaped without getting it's picture taken. Finally one on the board! After that we had relatively consistent action the rest of the day. I managed a pair of nice fish on the fluke. I shared our discovery with Mike and Malachi. After a bit of rumaging through their tackle, Mike was throwing a jerk bait and Malachi was using a fluke. As we neared the end of the trip the action intensified. I hooked a nice fish on the fluke. It immediately came to the surface and with a few head shakes, spit the hook out. I was disappointed but before I could make my next cast, Kelly all of a sudden had a fish on. It literally could not have been 20 seconds after I lost the other fish. Was it the same fish? I think that the fish I had on spit the lure then saw Kelly's lure and figured it was the minnow he had just lost so he went over to her lure to finish the job. We will never know. She said that she had about 4 feet of line out and her lure was just hanging in the water, when all of a sudden the huge fish came from out of nowhere and absolutely engulfed the X-Rap. The fish made several jumps and I remember seeing it come out of the water shaking it's head from side to side trying to free the lure. Before long, we had the fish on the grips and Kelly had landed by far the nicest fish of the day. We snapped some quick pictures and got the fish released. Kelly and I were both excited and shaking from the thrill. What a great memory. I'm so glad that Kelly was there and we got to experience it together. After that, I'm not sure what the difference was but all of a sudden everyone started seeing and catching fish. Kelly caught another nice fish approaching 30 inches. This fish had also T-boned the X-Rap and was clamped down on it. This time, I did the smart thing and used the spreaders. The fish was unhooked quickly and easily and everyone (including the fish) was much happier for it. Malachi got both his lure and leader broken off by a fish. He looked pretty down about it so Kelly and I paddled over and gave him a leader and I gave him the fluke off of my rod as it was the last one that I had in the boat. In the next 30 minutes he proceeded to catch two fish on it so I was extremely glad we gave it to him. I put on a musky lure as it was the closest thing I had to what was working. Within a few casts of throwing the Shallow Raider, I caught a nice Pike approaching 30 inches. He T-boned it and had all three hooks in him. After we released that fish I had two more smaller Pike follow without hitting my musky lure. By the end of the trip Mike finally got on the board and landed a decent Pike. All in all, the 4 of us landed 9 Pike and had at least several more opportunities each. What a great way to spend a November day! There may already be a return trip in the works!