Tell me your secrets

[manchovie]

Hey, I've been lurking here for ages (so long that my previous account was deleted for my lack of posts) but I'm on almost daily to see what my favourite local fishing gurus are on about. Such a wealth of information!
As for me, I've been fishing since I was a child but since my parents weren't into it, had to find my own mentors and information along the way (not to mention rides, hanging out with people you don't really like just to get near some water etc. I'm sure you guys have been through it!). Luckily I grew up near Grenadier pond and thus got a good amount of water time before being able to make my own way out. Since then I've fished virtually every kind of affordable fishing in a number of amazing places around the world and treasure every moment and every tiny wiener of a fish I've managed to pull.

Right now I'm hoping to get an edge on my cursefish, pike, which embarrassingly I've never landed in North America even with a massively overwhelming majority of time spent fishing for them and 10 or so lost battles over the years (meanwhile 3 hours in Poland at 2 locations got me 4 of them. Something is not right).

Anyways, cheers guys! I look forward to learning even more.

[egyptian fishermen]

Hello welcome! being american can't go to much into your pike situation but pm medetails about your set up and what your using out there and I'll be glad to help.

[Pescetarian]

Hi manchovie,

Not that I'm the official reception committee, but congrats on your "coming out" of lurk-land.

My fave fish to catch is pike and I live in Toronto, which is exactly why I joined this particular site. There's no need to be embarrassed about not having caught pike before and I'm pretty sure that if you head out semi-regularly in the next six months you'll catch a bunch. There are no secrets to catching pike and if you have the time, you can scour many of mine and other peoples' posts, where we gladly share all sorts of information about lures, places, time-of-day (two hours before sundown is prime) and other stuff from our experiences (reading between the lines will be helpful to you as well).

Pike are basically hungry, egotistical, energy conserving, stealthy apex predators. So, when you look at any body of water, imagine yourself to be down below in a three dimensional suspended environment, looking around for the best possible ambush location in which to position yourself for your meal-on-fins to pass by. Your natural camouflage that you wear, will blend well with the surrounding vegetation in which you'll snuggle into and you won't move much, except for maintaining a stationary position with your pectoral and pelvic fins, but you'll have a good field of vision where you'll be scanning down the sight-lines of your snout and anything that passes by within range of one body length, even if to the side or slightly behind you, will be picked up by the sensors on your body that is your lateral line. You'll attack most things that move, but if they stop briefly, you'll launch yourself at whatever it was like a torpedo, because the chance may never come again. Occasionally, you'll follow something out of curiosity, wondering weather its like one of those things that once hung on to you and caused you to break the water surface and end up in bright light, but if the thing suddenly stops and drops down, then that's you cue to attack, because it's clearly trying to escape. If you can see this scenario clearly, then that's exactly where you should cast your offering, because there's a good chance that a pike has chosen the spot that you've imagined, as the perfect ambush point.

Don't cast in one spot too long - six or eight good casts max, then move to the next spot. If pikie didn't go for it, you won't change his mind with endless reruns.

They're fair game all year round, but in this region leave them alone in April and the first week of May, because they're busy making new pike for you to catch in future. Their size will differ, depending on the time of year. The very big ones long for colder water and so will disappear immediately after spawning, returning only in winter, but the smaller ones will stick around and are catchable year round. They won't bite at night or during rain (I'm sure there'll always be the odd weird one that missed that memo), but around a full moon they're pretty active or if a cold front just passed by.

So get a rod and reel and some glitzy hardware and go catch one. You'll never forget that look of contempt that it'll give you that says: "you got this one, but wait till next time buddy - and they mean it".

[Clive]

Welcome!! Pescetarian summed it up perfectly. There is no fool proof way to get them, as they behave a little different from lake to lake, season to season. Covering water is key! There is a lot of shoreline on lake Ontario that will hold pike, especially in the spring. You'll have to work a lot harder finding them now then you would in May.

[manchovie]

Well, it certainly doesn't seem like our buddy Pescetarian's been having any issues!

Thanks for the warm welcome guys, you made my day! I'll continue lurking around, maybe contributing a little of my own content (I've got a pretty cool cutlassfish trip documented from my trip to Brazil, just have to organize it all) and continuing to hit the water. I've been fortunate enough to make a few firsts happen this year, maybe pike will be one of them!

[jwm]

Welcome aboard!