Most anglers know how predacious northern pike can be. They’ve probably heard those wild stories about monster pike gobbling up a swimming squirrel or choking trying to swallow a fish slightly smaller than itself.
And it’s true – on some days, that is. When they’re hot, they’re hot; you can throw virtually any lure, any size, any color out there, and water wolf will attack it. Regrettably, though, that isn’t always the case–not even often the case. On certain days, even in the best pike water, those toothy predators can be quite picky, and you have to work at finding something they want.
I’ve fished for pike all my life, and for the past six years, I’ve been spending a few weeks annually up in Pike Mecca, northern Saskatchewan. Along the way, my fishing partner, Gene Colling, and I have made a little amateur study of pike lures, always trying to outdo each other and find the hottest lure possible.
Every year, it seems, lure manufacturers crank out the next best lures. They don’t all work on pike, but most of them work on us. We have tackle bags full of the old standbys, but that hasn’t stopped us from buying and trying out many new lures. Along the way, we learned a few things that might help you on your next trip.
If you ask Canadian fishing guides, as we have many times, this question, “What lure would you take if you could only take one,” most say a large spoon – usually the Five of Diamonds pattern (with preference for those made by Len Thompson Lures, a Canadian company), but sometimes the old classic, the red-and-while Daredevile made by Eppinger.
The second choice seems to be a large bucktail, such as Bucher Bucktails, Mepps Magnum or Northland Bionic Bucktails Black/orange or black/chartreuse seem like the best colors.
Big bucktails and spoons work, no doubt, and we’ve used them successfully many times, but then, on those tough days, we’ve found that you need something new, perhaps something pike haven’t seen before. On some of those challenging days when pike ignore spoons and bucktails, we’ve been able to score with our newfound darlings.
My go-to lure isn’t even a lure. It’s an Esox Cobra Jig by e-Bait with an eight-inch ribbon tail, but not fished like a jig. I cast it out and make a slow, undulating retrieve. If I get to the boat without a strike, I give it a few vertical jigs before going to my next cast. More than half of the fish I’ve caught on Tremors, as we call it, fell for the vertical jig at the end of the cast. I could often see pike following it, mildly interested, but they couldn’t resist the vertical jig at the end of the cast. Orange seems like the hottest color, and ribbon tails seem to work better than the grub tails. I use casting gear for most pike lures, but I prefer a spinning outfit when fishing with Tremors.
My other favorite is officially called Real Pike, a big jerkbait designed by Salmo. The first year I discovered it, I only had one (bad idea!), and it was incredibly hot. I became quite attached to that lure, started calling it Pikey, even after it had more tooth scars on it than any lure I’ve used. One big pike even broke it in half, but I Superglued it together that night. The next day, it kept on nailing big pike (little guys don’t like it) until one took it down for good. I actually wrote an entire article about my favorite pike lure called Eulogizing Pikey. Weird, eh?
The following year, I had a tackle box full of Pikeys when I went to Canada, along with its close cousin, the Hot Pike, but admittedly, my money lure was a bit more resistible that year. I still caught fish, but not nearly as many as the previous year. That’s one lesson we’ve learned–just because a lure works once doesn’t mean it will work next time, next year, or in the next lake.
Gene’s money lure is the Johnson’s Silver Minnow by Berkley. Oddly–and contrary to the bigger-is-better strategy that usually works with pike–the smaller sizes (1/2 oz. or 3/4 oz.) work better than the heavier minnows. Gold seems to be the best color, with the classic silver a close second. He often puts a 3-inch plastic grub or shad tail on the hook, which seems to bring even more strikes.
One big plus for the Johnson minnow is the single hook. Ditto for Tremors. The nasty-ass treble hooks, sometimes three per lure, not only make unhooking pike difficult, sometimes resulting in (this is the voice of experience) painful pike wounds, but those treble hooks are hard on the fish. The last thing we want to do is kill a big pike, which is why we prefer single-hook lures.
Another single-hook favorite for Gene is a leach-like Jensen Jig, which is a black jig head with an eight-inch strip of black rabbit fur in tow.
Gene has gone over to the plastic revolution of recent years, quite successfully. He has had some great days with plastic swimbaits such as Storm Wild Eyes and Berkley Hollow Bellies and the nine-inch Slug Go (black or hot pink) by Lunker City, a great choice for luring pike out of heavy weeds. The only problem with plastics is they don’t stand up when pike start chewing on them, so take more than one.
I’ve also warming up to soft plastics. Last year, for example, I scored a lot of nice pike with Dunwright Tackle’s Lifelike Pike series, which, amazingly, swim exactly a fish. I used the eight-inchers, white and natural colors. Amazing how much pike like pike.
One hard plastic both of us like is the classic Rat-L-Trap from Bill Lewis Lures. The Rat-L-Trap might be better known as a bass or walleye lure, but the big Magnum Force (1 oz.) model is deadly on pike–maybe too deadly, in fact. In our experience, pike can hardly resist the Rat-L-Trap (red or orange worked best), but the big girls tend to inhale Rat-L-Traps, which are relatively small compared to many pike lures.
When that happens, you have some work to do to safely unhook and release the fish, even with the barbs pinched down as required on many fly-in lakes in Canada, so make sure you have hook removal tools. I’ve tried them all, it seems, and for the last two years, I’ve settled on the Rising Rancher locking pliers (12-inch version) as my favorite.
If you’re one who prefers to stay with spoons, you’ll still catch a lot of fish–perhaps more than we will while experimenting with unproven new lures. And you have a lot of choices nowadays. Two spoons we like are the Northland Forage Minnow (perch) and Mepps Syclops (orange). Another spoon-like lure that caught us a lot pike was the Northland Jawbreaker, but it only comes in a 1/2 oz. size, which is a little small when in big pike water.
Last year, Gene and I went on our first muskie hunting trip (click here to read about it), and we were introduced to a line of amazing muskie lures invented by Musky Mayhem called Cowgirls–a new breed of gaudy, hard-pulling, double-bladed bucktails that have been the rage among muskie anglers for several years. While shopping for Cowgirls, we discovered the smaller versions called Showgirls and Baby Girls and immediately predicted pike couldn’t resist them. We loaded up on them and took them to Canada last year. The result? Even though we caught some nice pike on them, the “Girls” weren’t as irresistible as we expected, but attractive enough to earn a place in my burgeoning tackle box–you know, the one that requires a forklift to load into the boat!
So, if you’re one of those anglers always looking for greener pastures instead of the old traditional ways that still work, sometimes, don’t leave the old standbys, spoons and bucktails, home when you take off on your next pike fishing trip, but save space in your box for a few new lures that might work even better, or not, when the water wolf gets fussy. You’ll never know until you try.