5/30/16 Pike Action is Heating Up...Literally

The weather has been a bit unusual in that it has been 80+ degrees for more than a week. The water is warming up fast and the fish are quickly changing to more of a summer pattern. During Saturday's trip with my dad, we only ended up catching one small Pike between the two of us. This left me really wanting to catch some Pike. So with that as the goal, I headed north on Memorial Day to a river that has quickly become one of my favorite venues for Pike fishing. This river has been a consistent producer, I caught my biggest Pike of last year from it, and I saw a few enormous Pike during my last trip. I started off the day fishing a section that produced absolutely nothing for me. So after an hour I quickly decided to make a change and headed for another section. This turned out to be the right move. Within 10 minutes of being on the water. I had an awesome swing and a miss from a decent fish. I moved my jerkbait one more time and let it sit. It was immediately devoured by the nicest fish of the day. It wasn't a huge fish but somewhere around 30 inches and fat as can be. I reached for my pliers to unhook the fish and realized that I had forgotten my PFD in the truck after the move. To tell you the truth, I was pretty gun-shy to unhook the fish by hand after my experience last week. Luckily, the fish was hooked in an easy spot to unhook it by hand. After a quick picture I released the fish and headed back to the truck to get my PFD. With my PFD on, I paddled back to where I had left off and started casting. Within just a few more minutes I caught another decent fish in the high 20 inch range. It hit my lure and just kept moving with it. The fish had probably already moved 5 feet in the water before I set the hook. The leader was wrapped around it's mouth twice and hooked back onto the lure making it look like it had been lassoed! After that fish the action slowed considerably. I caught a Bass and a few tiny pike over the next hour before running into another decent fish approaching 30 inches. It hit my lure at the far point of my cast and gave me a couple of decent runs at the kayak. After that fish, boat traffic on the river picked up exponentially and the fishing died off with it. I did manage two more smaller Pike before pulling the plug on the trip. This brought my total fish count to 7 Pike and 1 Bass for the day. Not a bad trip in anyone's book especially with some of the nicer fish that I landed. It looks like summer Pike fishing is in full swing.