Last weekend managed to sneak out on saturday with the kayaks. We wasn't really in our usual "lets explore the world" mode just wanted to catch some fish, so made the call to fish one of the well known lake. It has been paid off well but was a tricky and slow day, the air pressure was high, it was too calm and mainly sunny , but had those little windows when the wind finally picked up and bring some cloud coverage for a few minutes. When you visit a lake again what you did fished before and had a successful day on it, what you probably gonna do is, exactly the same what you did on that day. Well it shows off pretty quickly that this isn't the same situation today at all. We was far from the mad pike attacks, when the jacks hits the big lures without any hesitation and you have to battle through on them to find a bigger fish.
When i'm not after the big mammas and specially when fishing out of kayak I always choose my Illex Element Rider S 250 XH, the rod is 14-80g so this beauty lauds me to fish from small 5" lures up to 34cm shads, and one of the main reason that the handle is shorter than normal jerkbait rods, much more comfier to fish from the kayak with a short handle. Steve decided to gear up with the big baits and big rod, as if I remember well was his motto of the day before " Go Big or Go Home"! Anchor down on the first honey spot and start throwing the big boys mmmm 10 minutes not a single contact. Well I love catching pike in any size so i changed my lure to the smaller version 150 dexter shad in rudd colour , my favorite lure all the time plus had a sneaky chat with a match angler who just arrived that, what he gonna fishing for today and he said roach, spot on I have that pattern in my inventory, because then is high chance that pike might feeding on the roach around that area. Clip it on and had a quick bite which wasn't aggressive at all. Next cast boom had a decent jack on. I was really happy to nail a good few up to 8lb, but suddenly they switch off or moved away from the area.
Check the wind direction and its blowing right to the other weed bank mmmm as it says in the pike fishing bible, the wind blows the bait fish away, so let's get the anchor up and go to the far side. On the way paddling up all ready saw some movement of the pikes to hammering the baitfish. Lure in the middle quickly and then realized that its super shallow might 2ft with weed all over on it. Change over to a 5g jighead what i found the lightest in my bag, cast out and reel quick as i can just under the surface then boom she is back and take my lure as it suppose to be. Very intense fight because I couldn't give a line for her to go back between the weed, lovely and strong girl in top condition.
As the day was going on i had a few more fish on the small lures, which I was chuffed with , great day to be out and great sport . The wind turns just before lunch so we decided to move on with it , give another hour on the new spot then get out for lunch . Spinning away had a few contact but more likely looked they switched off again as it was brighten up. Wind picked up a little bit from out of nowhere and the clouds covered the sun , made a big cast out my lure just landed front of the reeds as I was chatting away that the guys doesn't had many luck so far then boom after the about 3 turns on the reel this big mamma just hammered my lure for lunch! And off she go on my screaming
reel, I managed to bring her up to the boat about 10 times at least but she just didn't wanna give up and wend pretty bonkers every time when dives down in the deeper parts, but finally after a long fight she slipped in the net.....victory! Paddle out to the land quickly and take some snaps in the water and give enough time to her to recover. I basically don't use very light tackle for pike but like keep it finesse as possible and the reason is that fight the fish quickly and let it go quickly without stressing out the fish too much , so i give a good stick for her as much as I could but I couldn't break her mind and she was really strong, one hell of a fight that's for sure. Then she just slipped out of my hands and swims away......she had some attitude, as a good girls has.
So this day was definitely a small lure day, because the boys didn't finish the day very well to stick on with the big baits all day. Well my theory is even when out for chasing the big fish with big lures, never can go wrong to put a few smaller ones in the box, because if you don't change with the conditions you didn't tried everything and if you didn't tried everything , you didn't cover all the options what can get you fish at the end of your line. Its paid of for me on that day ;)
Some Big and the Small brothers
Hope you guys have a good season and lots of fish , Tight lines! ;)
