Pike In Canada -- A Traveling Expert’s Top Pike Picks

(Top to bottom by column) Column 1: Lindy Tiger Tube, YUM Dingers (2 sizes), Berkley Power Eel, Lunker City Salt Shaker. Column 2: Lunker City Fin-S Fish, Musky Innovations Chatterbait, Bait Rigs Cobra Head with Mann’s Jelly Hoo, Jensen Jigs Bunny Strip Jig. Column 3: Lindy Musky Roller, Fudally Musky Candy Spin, Rapala X-Rap Xtreme Slashbait, Blue Fox Vibrax.

Up in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Province, big pike stay shallow all summer and well into fall. For big pike in open water, consider driving to Tobin Lake, Lake Winnipeg, Rainy Lake, Lake of the Woods, and other destinations just across the border. Big Shield pike often cruise the flats in 40- to 60-foot depths during summer. On windy, cloudy days they come up and take over the shallow reefs. Down deep, use a big jig-plastic combo. Try 1- to 2-ounce Bait Rigs Cobra heads coupled with a 7-inch Reaper Tail, Mann’s Jelly Hoo, or other straight tails. Action tails slow the combo down. The idea is to get it on bottom quick in 50 feet of water. When they come up on the reefs, suspending minnowbaits rule.

A lighter 1/2-ounce Cobra matched with a Jelly Hoo is still a big favorite of mine around cabbage beds. The cupped underside of a Cobra helps keep the package up in the weedtops, with the rod tip held high while being constantly snapped upward, reeling as the rod tip is dropped. I developed the tactic at Misaw Lake many years ago, and it continues to entice big northerns and river muskies whenever I find them in weeds. Mann’s Jelly Hoo is a necessary ingredient, because it’s so incredibly flappy. Take lots, though. Big toothies tend to tear them up at a rapacious rate. Where weeds get really dense, another must-have item becomes the Musky Innovations Chatterbait, basically a jig with a big blade on its face that makes the package rise. This bait wobbles and walks over the nastiest tangles of weeds and precipitates monstrous, frothing boils. It produced some giant pike for us on Lake of the Woods last year.

In waters where the biggest pike have seen it all, Lucky Craft Pointer 128s and the new Rapala X-Rap Xtreme Slashbaits become the most dependable hardbaits. A bait that transforms in an instant from wild, erratic, side-to-side action to motionless suspension is a lock. Something about suspending baits drives big toothies nuts—probably the fact that they stall without rising or dropping, forcing following pike to make a decision to turn or strike. Filming with the Xtreme Slashbait on Wollaston last year, it produced the biggest pike of the trip—a fish that followed it to boatside, lunched the lure, and proceeded to froth water on the camera, the cameraman, and everything else within 20 yards.

That’s why we go—to get impromptu showers from fish almost too big to handle with a proclivity for hitting lures at our feet. We go to stare down a mythical 50-incher. But we also go to figure them out when they’re tough. It’s not that easy anymore, but the rewards can be better. To trick something that’s never been tricked isn’t much of a trick. Tricking a 50-incher that’s been around the block a few times—now, that’s a trick, mate. To do it requires thought, and more finesse than ever before. This year, think about anything pike haven’t seen that should work, and pack it.