Latin names for species tend to be apt. The brook trout, for instance, is salvelinus fontinalus, which translates roughly as char living in springs. No species designation is more apt, however, than esox lucious, the water wolf.

"Pike definitely school at times," according to Jim Lindner, In-Fisherman field editor. "They roam around in packs and hunt like wolves." Racist wolves. Maybe it's not their fault. Maybe smallmouths are the racists and the pike are laissez faire. But they definitely practice some kind of apartheid. In warm, stable weather, smallmouths wander the shallow tips of reefs and sunken islands while pike keep to the depths. After a cold front, they trade places. Pike put smallmouths on the back of the bus, ship 'em deep, and commandeer prime, shallow foraging areas.

Folks want to fish pike shallow, because it's easy (visible structure) and they've historically had some success doing it. On big main-lake weedbeds, a few gators always patrol the perimeter. But, truth be known, most anglers fail to find good pike consistently. "Because," Jim points out," they're not fishing deep enough. A lot of pike fishermen say they're fishing deep; they're talking 15 to 20 feet. That's not deep to a pike. Just about everywhere we go in North America, big pike spend much of the season below 25 feet."

In-Fisherman Founder Al Lindner has a decided affinity for gators. He's been chasing pike throughout the seasons over many years and has had his share of problems finding them in transition from one calendar period to the next. "Big pike seem to become scarce when the water hits the 60F range in late spring and early summer," Al says. "But it only seems that way. Tullibees (ciscoes) and perch, key forage species for big pike, move deeper just as the water reaches 60F on top, and pike follow them down.

"Once you've identified the right area, cruise around, searching for big schools of bait with sonar. Don't waste time casting blind, because the size of the area required to maintain a lot of big pike is pretty big.

"Wind drives the pattern. A steady wind blowing into the area will set pike up on the windward side of a structure, even when they're deep. All the pike could be on one side of a huge reef one day, and the next day they could be positioned altogether differently. Clouds of bait are key. Find the food. Late last summer fish were down as deep as they could go without leaving the flats or crossing the thermocline. When we finally found bait, we found packs of gators."

"We sight fish them with electronics and vertically jig with big jig-plastic combos," says In-Fisherman field editor Jim Lindner. "It's a visual game. At times, we can actually watch big hooks reacting to the bait on sonar. During stable weather, we position the boat where we can make long casts to 10 or 15 feet of water and work the jig down to 35 feet or so, using 1/2- to 1 1/2-ounce jigs (such as those offered by Bait Rigs Tackle, Jack's Jigs, Owner American, Nichols Lures, and Walker Tackle) with big reeper tails, lizards, Slug-Gos, or grubs. The idea is to balance the line with the weight of the jig and the size of the plastic so the thing casts a mile and drops like a rock.

"You don't want to slow the fall of the bait with a thick mondo plastic body. If it's doing this," (his hand tracing the slow, undulating course of a boring roller coaster) "you're not getting bit. You want a rapid up-down movement, jumping the bait 7 or 8 feet off bottom with each jigging motion. A really erratic action with a fast drop speed is critical."

Cast, let the jig fall vertically, point the rod tip down, and as soon as the jig hits bottom, lift the rod tip sharply 7 or 8 feet. Follow the jig back to bottom with the rod tip, and as it hits bottom, snap it up again. When the jig reaches a point directly below the boat, work it vertically for several snaps--especially when marking big fish.

For this routine, the Lindner boys like 7 1/2-foot flippin' sticks; high-speed casting reels; and tough, abrasion-resistant 20- to 25-pound monofilament like Berkley Big Game. (I prefer superbraids, like Fins Spectra or Power Pro, which are thinner and cut the water a little better, allowing me to cast farther, fish faster, and set hooks harder.) The rod not only has to lift a lot of weight, but also has to sweep the jig high, because pike often position 4 or 5 feet off bottom.

A long, fast-action, medium-heavy- to heavy-power rod is crucial to the technique. If the jig isn't snapping off bottom and getting back down at a rapid pace, the presentation will be too slow to cover much water. With the right tackle, it quickly covers a horizontal band of water up to 120 feet long and a vertical zone from bottom to 8 feet up. Pike on metabolic overdrive in summer don't have to see the jig for a long time. They just have to see it and it's zip, rip, and chew.

"I like magnum Jack's Jigs Reeper Tails, 6- to 8-inch lizards, magnum Lunker City Slug-Gos, 6-inch Berkley Power Grubs, Mann's Jelly Hoos, Nichol's Willie-Bill's Waterdogs--those kinds of plastics," Jim says. "The shape should be long and slender so it slips through the water efficiently without slowing down the jig, while presenting the profile of something in the size range that makes a big gator think lunch.

"The key to presenting those baits is a jig with a long-shank hook and a big gap. One of my favorite choices is a 1-ounce football head. It falls right and really pops up and down. Football heads are designed to be dropped right to bottom and dragged, but they work fine with this big overkill, snap-jigging technique. Big round heads, giant mushroom heads, and bullet heads--most jig styles--work if the hook is right. We're talking substantial pieces of plastic, even though they're mostly long and slender, so at minimum, it requires a long-shank 6/0 hook to control the bait--give it some backbone--while retaining enough room between the point and the plastic (gap) to set the hook past the barb.

"We position the boat deep, but where we can cast into shallower water, to depths of about 10 or 12 feet. Then we work the jig down to 30 or 35 feet," Jim says. "These jigs should drop fast enough to work around a structure quickly to determine if it's the main attraction, and if not, allow you to quickly jump to the next. If you're marking big hooks below the boat, keep moving and jig vertically, right beneath the boat. In the clarity of the lakes where we've been doing this, pike can see 20 to 30 feet vertically. They can come off bottom and smash a jig right in the surface film, so a jig doesn't have to be in an area long to determine if active fish are around. I can picture lots of pike spots on the Great Lakes where this procedure would produce, too, because the water's so clear.

"Popping gators on jigs is just a gas. When you're only 20 or 30 feet away from a 20-pounder, the strike's vicious. It's definitely the most entertaining way to go, but not the only way. Spinner rigging with livebait (using a twin-hook spinner harness with a big minnow or two on a 3-way rig) works really well when fish are clustered and less active. Speed trolling deep-diving crankbaits or 3-way rigs with big minnowbaits works better when pike are scattered or where the population is thinner. And throwing heavy spinnerbaits, like the 2-ounce Ledgebuster, letting it drop and pumping it along near bottom, can be a great alternative tactic. But power snapping with big jigs is too much fun to miss.

"Snakes are flats fish," Jim emphasizes. "They might suspend 3 or 4 feet up, but I think they spend most of their time cruising along right on bottom. Sometimes they like the sharpest drops, but sometimes they're out wandering on the flat, up to a few hundred feet from the base of the structure, another reason why it's important to keep an eye on the depthfinder and to move fast. If pike are there, chances are you'll see them. We actually jigged for pike and watched them react on the depthfinder--that's how vertically we work the bait, at times. When you run out of bait and big hooks on the screen, it's time to move."

Late June is prime time along both sides of the Canadian border. Farther north, it may not happen until early July or possibly later. If the surface reading is 60F or higher, the pattern should be established. By then, the forage base and most of the larger pike have stationed in deeper grazing areas. On warm, sultry days, hunt deep. When the weather turns cool, stalk windward rocks and weeds near deep water. And the pattern persists right through fall, wherever water wolves roam deep in hungry packs. Plenty of time to power snap for big gators with big jigs and big plastics for big fun throughout the open-water season.