At Wollaston Lake, where big pike seem to move quite a bit between seasonal habitats, guides informed us that smaller pike kept for shorelunch are often full to overflowing with leeches when cleaned. Big pike commonly fall to bigger leech imitations stripped through the many boulder fields and sparse cabbage beds of Wollaston and many other big northern lakes, but that doesn’t mean a fly is the only way to imitate big leeches.
During my most recent visit to Misaw Lake, one of the most successful tactics we employed involved black, 5- to 7-inch soft sticks, like YUM Dingers, Lunker City Slug-Gos, and Yamamoto Senkos, all of which suggest big leeches. Using only the hook for weight, the sticks were rigged on straight-shafted, size 6/0 to 10/0 Owner hooks. The baits were allowed to drop along weed edges or twitched slowly over rockpiles and boulder fields. Long casts were easy with 30-pound braided line on heavy spinning gear with large spools.
The same tackle will present 1/4- to 3/8-ounce bunny-strip Jensen Jigs, a tactic that worked fabulously at Kasba Lake a few years back. A jig tied with a 5- to 7-inch bunny-strip trailer is a natural leech imitation, but only when it isn’t allowed to drop too fast, thus the small-to-medium jighead. White and firetiger patterns sometimes work well, but brown and black bunny jigs tend to catch about 80 percent of the bigger fish, suggesting that pike are looking for leeches and the natural colors work best—a characteristic we expect to find in wary fish. Unlike the soft-stick approach, bunny jigs are designed for swimming. Keep the rod tip up and pull, nod, drop, and reel; lift it slowly and try to keep it off bottom at the slowest possible pace.
On a fly-in from Selwyn Lake a few years back, In-Fisherman Art Director Chuck Beasley caught some nice specimens on the biggest Lindy Tiger Tube. I continued to experiment and began to score gators with Lunker City Salt Shakers presented on 3/8- to 1/2-ounce jigs and allowed to fall vertically along a break from 5 to 12 feet of water. We both popped several over 40 inches. Pike were hitting both lures on the drop, illuminating the fact that we can’t always depend on pike to be pike and slash horizontal presentations with gusto. That day, the real specimens wanted the lure falling straight down.
In the mid- to southern latitudes of the Far North, when faced with big, deep cabbage beds in places like North Knife Lake, the Churchill River, Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake, during August when the fishing gets tough, I’ve relied on larger bass-sized spinnerbaits many times to get the job done. One of my favorites is the Hildebrandt Okeechobee Special, which sports a single size #7 willowleaf blade. Another favorite is a small muskie spinnerbait from Fudally called the Musky Candy Spin, a twin-Colorado model with a short, tight-angled arm. Spinnerbaits in those sizes are must-have items for toothies of the Far North.
Spinning blades, in general, maintain a universal appeal for esox lucius. Smaller muskie bucktails, like the Lindy Musky Roller, can be amazingly effective at times, but don’t forget to pack a few without hair. Filming on Wollaston last year, the guide (Rob “Crash” Wilson) boated one big pike after another with a size #6, bare-bones Blue Fox Vibrax spinner.
-
Master Angler
Browse By
-
Gear Database
-
Solunar Calendar
Today's Solunar Info:
- Loading date...
- Loading times...
- Loading times...
