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Posts: 41
Location: Lower Peninsula | The situation:
I know right where some big pike are currently. They have been in the same place since early this month when vertical weeds started to grow in this large side section near the mouth of a medium size river that flows into a Great Lake. The depth is anywhere from 10-16 feet and cabbage weeds are visible just a few feet down. The pike will suspend in the weeds and are very visible once you get close. Often the pike are only 3-6 feet down and multiple will be grouped up.
Other factors:
Large carp (not forage size that I have seen) and drum are constantly schooled up in the area even higher in the water column than the pike.
The area gets a lot of large recreational boat traffic.
Visibility is good say outline of pike visible to 12ft down. Clear but not Great Lakes crystal clear. Water color is green/turquoise.
They get fished some but not too heavily, though it is not a large area.
All sizes of pike including 40”+ are present, the average seems to be about 28”
The pike are very spooky do not chase/figure 8 well. They either bite instantly or lunge in from where you can’t see them.
I already caught a 41.5” from this area as well as multiple mid 20s fish but I don’t see a reason I shouldn’t land a 30”+ every time I fish this spot. Super high density.
Question:
What would you try to catch the larger pike in this situation. I already have some answers that got some results but I want to see what everyone’s instincts say to try first.
I will try to attach a reference picture but I’m on mobile so may not be doable
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Posts: 2015
| Kite fish them like tuna... bet you didn't think you'd get that answer  |
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Posts: 41
Location: Lower Peninsula | IAJustin - 6/23/2023 4:58 PM
Kite fish them like tuna... bet you didn't think you'd get that answer :)
No I didn’t I’ll add that to my list of things to try after I try every single lure I own. Thanks |
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Posts: 155
Location: Rochester, New York | Fish a copper red devle dardevle or brass 5 of diamonds
Biggest dead bait you can find
Big live bait or use bluegill or perch (legal in ny but counts towards legal limit idk about other states)
Pike swimbait(they are very territorial) |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Spinnerbait or Chattershad just above the fish. Jig and creature on the edge. |
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Posts: 59
| Toss out a glide bait and dance it in front of their noses! |
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Posts: 529
Location: NW WI | Before I spit my 2cents. How bout u tell us all what your already doing and at what hourly times please.
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Posts: 3147
| When can't you catch pike in weeds with a bright spinnerbait, especially popped when contacting a weed. Don't over think it
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Posts: 3147
| When can't you catch pike in weeds with a bright spinnerbait, especially popped when contacting a weed. Don't over think it
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Posts: 1247
Location: Walker, MN | A #14 Husky Jerk in TN Shad is a pike slayer. Fished with slack line and hard/fast erratic hits. |
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Posts: 1737
| Depends, are you looking for the fun of catch and release, then a spinnerbait or do you wanna kill and eat it? |
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Location: PA Angler | A big creek chub on a bobber.
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Posts: 105
Location: Alberta Canada | My go to for pike in cabbage is a dive & rise either dipping into the cabbage, staying just above or working edges/pockets in it. I use ones I designed for this purpose but most 8inch plus dive & rise would likely work
I have run every option you can think of for the conditions you listed and the versatility on how you can work a dive & rise and limit being hung up in the cabbage make it my go to. I have caught lots of big pike doing this
If you can keep it out of the weeds working a savage gear 4 play can also be a good option. The rapala peto or savage gear pike are also good options for running above the cabbage
For when the pike are holding tight in the cabbage and don’t want to come up for a lure weedless soft plastics can make all the difference. Large paddle tail or curly tail swimbaits rigged on a weedless weighted swimbait hook can be great. Work them slowly and drop them right into the cabbage working a twitch and pause retrieval
Those are my preferred options but of course burning spinner balts and bucktails, spoons or any of the more common methods can work. I just listed the 3 methods that have been my top producing methods.
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Posts: 355
Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | Pikebait - 6/24/2023 11:06 AM
For when the pike are holding tight in the cabbage and don’t want to come up for a lure weedless soft plastics can make all the difference. Large paddle tail or curly tail swimbaits rigged on a weedless weighted swimbait hook can be great. Work them slowly and drop them right into the cabbage working a twitch and pause retrieval
^^This -- or add plastic to a spoon, williams, johnson minnow or gibbs ruby eyes, swap to single hook and cover hook point. Work it slow and flutter right to bottom if necessary - skinny braid is key to shred through weeds as needed.
Live bait option is a sure thing (lindy rig type set-up with wire and single hook), but might have to work through a lot of smaller ones first.
Go soon, as any pike in mid to upper thirties and for sure 40s will not be shallow for very much longer unless there is cold water inflow or a spring there.
Use heavy gear and musky tools (ie be nice to the big pike) to get them back quick
Edited by Angling Oracle 6/24/2023 12:21 PM
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Posts: 1411
Location: Brighton CO. | Spinnerbait, Depth Raider or Baby Depth Raider. |
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Posts: 1273
Location: Stevens Point, Wi. | Spot lock up wind of known locations and drift a 6 to 8 inch minnow/sucker down wind under a float suspended just above the weeds. |
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Posts: 20219
Location: oswego, il | Depending on how high the weeds are and what baits you can work over or through it many good options so far. I would add a bass type swim jig to your roster. I would also make my own up sized beetle spin and put a 4" gulp alive twister tail on it. Will probably catch a few drum on it as well.
Edited by ToddM 6/25/2023 8:19 AM
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Posts: 642
Location: Duluth | Fish off that edge, in the water around that spot. They are lazy and hanging there for a reason. |
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Posts: 41
Location: Lower Peninsula | Muskie101 - 6/23/2023 5:16 PM
Fish a copper red devle dardevle or brass 5 of diamonds
Biggest dead bait you can find
Big live bait or use bluegill or perch (legal in ny but counts towards legal limit idk about other states)
Pike swimbait(they are very territorial)
Good call—I’ve gotten most of my action on a 6” prism pike phantom, these fellas are definitely territorial. Which is weird because you can see in the picture how they snuggle up next to each other. I need to work on my spoon game, I do well casting them for other species, especially jigging spoons. Reall any spoon can be a jigging spoon if you fish it slow enough on thin line.
7.62xJay - 6/23/2023 7:59 PM
Before I spit my 2cents. How bout u tell us all what your already doing and at what hourly times please.
I have fished this spot in the last two hours before sunset and during the mid morning to mid day 9:00am to 2:00pm. I have tried shadzilla (1 bite), super swim jig, #6 single/double tinsel (1 bite), gold/brown giant killer (1 fish 41.5”), gold/orange inhaler (2 fish mid 20), green chartreuse spinner bait, mid and mini Medusa, Ashcraft baby glide (follows at evening only), 4” walleye phantom (follows+2 mid twenty), 8” grub, phantom freak top water at dusk.
Most successful lures have been prism pike softail (let it waddle-pause between weed clumps) and some sort of dark pumpkin tube/swim jig sight casted just pas fish worked seimvertically purposefully making contact with weeds. I’m having trouble getting hooks into them when they snap at jigs. It seems they often bite but miss the lure—maybe you guys have experienced this while jigging them visually icefishing.
Brian Hoffies - 6/24/2023 7:35 AM
Depends, are you looking for the fun of catch and release, then a spinnerbait or do you wanna kill and eat it?
I’m looking for catch and release only. If I really wanted to get two eaters I could get them somewhere else. I want to learn to coax the big ones, maybe even catch my 41.5 again—it had a distinguishable tail. I will post the picture below, someone please give me a weight estimate.
Pikebait - 6/24/2023 12:06 PM
For when the pike are holding tight in the cabbage and don’t want to come up for a lure weedless soft plastics can make all the difference. Large paddle tail or curly tail swimbaits rigged on a weedless weighted swimbait hook can be great. Work them slowly and drop them right into the cabbage working a twitch and pause retrieval
I will try this. I have had so much success with heavy jig heads that I have not experimented much with EWG weedsless rigging. Even though I know it’s irrational, I worry about my hookups.
ToddM - 6/25/2023 9:17 AM
Depending on how high the weeds are and what baits you can work over or through it many good options so far. I would add a bass type swim jig to your roster. I would also make my own up sized beetle spin and put a 4" gulp alive twister tail on it. Will probably catch a few drum on it as well.
The swim jig has been doing ok for me—definitely effective. I had a particular low thirties pike follow it off a slow retrieve fan cast just as I was leaving. This particular pike I have seen multiple times, it’s has the spinner half of a safety pin spinnerbait coming out of the right side of its face. Every time it swims the smaller blade starts spinning it’s pretty funny actually, though that pikes days are numbered if nobody catches him and removes it.
Edited by RikkiTikkii 6/25/2023 4:37 PM
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Posts: 105
Location: Alberta Canada | For weedless swimbait fishing my preferred hook is an 8/0 owner beast hook. If the soft plastic doesn’t have a belly slot I will cut one to improve hook ups too
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Posts: 224
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota | I was really into fishing for big pike before I got into musky and still do it some before musky season. A few baits to try that I’ve caught fish over 40” on are a 4.8” keitech in the sun gill color, a bass sized jerkbait my favorite being the duo realis 120 in any perch like color, and a 4” phantom soft tail. By far though my best baits are paddle tails, another good one is a 6” megabass mag draft. I’ve found with pike that big bait doesn’t really mean big fish the way it does with musky. I’ve caught 100’s of pike on musky baits and the 5 I’ve caught over 40 were all on bass sized baits |
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Posts: 41
Location: Lower Peninsula | Ogandrews - 6/25/2023 8:12 PM
I was really into fishing for big pike before I got into musky and still do it some before musky season. A few baits to try that I’ve caught fish over 40” on are a 4.8” keitech in the sun gill color, a bass sized jerkbait my favorite being the duo realis 120 in any perch like color, and a 4” phantom soft tail. By far though my best baits are paddle tails, another good one is a 6” megabass mag draft. I’ve found with pike that big bait doesn’t really mean big fish the way it does with musky. I’ve caught 100’s of pike on musky baits and the 5 I’ve caught over 40 were all on bass sized baits
The 4” phantom is deadly. I had one bite it that was probably 40 but I was in a kayak with no net—it got away. I use a 7’4” Tatula “frog rod” and it gets a really good snap action while casting them great. I use 40 lb maxcuatro and a short straight wire leader though a short but stiff flouro leader works fine in a pinch. I of course change out the hooks too—thin hooks are good but the stock ones will bend out. |
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Posts: 358
| id go with an S Waver in a pattern you like, freestyle 6" magdraft, and a 7" suick (i think they still make). The first two i use bass fishing and if there are pikes around they seem to like, and the 7" suick i have just caught lots of pikes on over the years. |
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Posts: 187
| I'd wacky rig a 8in Sluggo and drop it on their head. |
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Posts: 386
| First of all, that is cool as hell.
I don't target pike specifically all that often, but 3 things come to mind - some repeat from others, but it's where I'd start:
1. Rip medussas through the cabbage - start with a regular and move up or down as the fish react.
2. Red October tube. Based on the water colum, probably on a hybrid rig.
3. Suick - 7" or 9".
Share some pics if you find the right presentation. Good luck. |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | If you want to rig a creature weedless make a 60# 7 strand leader 12" long with a 1/4 ounce bullet slip sinker on the wire. A 5/0 to 6/0 hook is plenty. Super glue the creature head to the hook or keeper depending on which you use, and have a couple glued and ready to go. You can also buy jigs with that hook style, they work great too. I've caught tons of big pike on that setup and everything else hits it. Yellow is a great pike color. Sounds like a great spot, good luck!
https://www.outdoorsfirst.com/muskie/article/of-jigs-and-muskies/
A little history and some technique.
www.violentstrikelures.com
Where to buy Fliptail Creatures.
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Posts: 105
Location: Alberta Canada | Ogandrews - 6/25/2023 7:12 PM
I was really into fishing for big pike before I got into musky and still do it some before musky season. A few baits to try that I’ve caught fish over 40” on are a 4.8” keitech in the sun gill color, a bass sized jerkbait my favorite being the duo realis 120 in any perch like color, and a 4” phantom soft tail. By far though my best baits are paddle tails, another good one is a 6” megabass mag draft. I’ve found with pike that big bait doesn’t really mean big fish the way it does with musky. I’ve caught 100’s of pike on musky baits and the 5 I’ve caught over 40 were all on bass sized baits
Maybe it’s the forage in your area the pike choose to target or the lack of musky present where I pike fish but I find the complete opposite when it comes to bait size and big pike in Western Canada.
I don’t run baits under 6inches anymore and commonly run lures over 10inches. The fishermen who consistently catch big pike around here(40inch plus) are running musky gear, ordering big pike lures from Europe or building/pouring their own baits. Last pike lure I finished designing is over 16inches long stretched out. Big pike around here will still take small baits but far less common.
Completely different waters and from what I have been reading on this forum 40inch pike are less common in the eastern US too. It’s actually been interesting to hear how different you guys are experiencing the same species on the opposite side of the continent
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Posts: 529
Location: NW WI | Gunna throw out 2 personal details on suggestions already made.
Chatterbait- get ya Z-mann Chatterbait Freedom. Aerodynamic head+Jointed on EWG Hook. This allows you to Texpose a trailer and gives your trailer more action since it's not a solid hook. Trailer it with a contrasting twin tail skirted spider grub. I personally prefer Chompers. So if your a white jig, run blue and black trailer. I like the Chompers because the length is perfect to just texpose hook into the very far back of the jig. It'll last 1-5 hits, than flip it. Rip it apart, they're cheap enough to just keep burning through em.
Another chatter is the "Pepper Custom Baits Commando Rumbler" I like it for all the same reasons except it comes with 2 swimbait trailers and 1 feathered treble. They used to be like $3 cheaper than Zmann too, but now they're more expensive.
Either way you got a chatter that doesn't care about about cabbage. I like to Yo-yo em with some infrequent snaps at the top or bottom of yo-yo. Letting it sink deep and burning and pausing just to maintain depth also works too.
Swimbaits- I like Smashtech Headhunter, Optimum Boom Boom Weedless 6", Little Creeper Trash fish. To keep it simple, all rigged with Owner 12/0 EWG. Get a mix of Unweighted, weighted,weighted flash. And like Steve kinda said, u can make your own bullet weighted sinker or Stealth Tackle makes a solid 3/4oz (I believe) weighted leader if you need to get deeper. Your gunna texpose em and there's 2 retrieves I do. Either toss, countdown and just slow lazy retrieve letting it bang off and through the weeds, u can throw in a reel sprint here n there too looking for a trigger. Or you kinda do like a twitching jerking yo-yo- basically just be random as all heck as long as the bait is moving up and down and changing its tempo and action on the climb and fall and.plateus in-between.
Here's something different now. A few times I've been on non musky water with low fishing pressure. And the golden standard pike lure selection just simply was not working. I got bored and grabbed my new Rad Dog Buzzbait just to see how it did in the weeds and it was fricken game on baby! Pike after pike was all of a sudden turned on along with a few big bass. So maybe try that out or my Slither Tackle Musky Rattler also has some pike on it.
I'm not saying this to promote the method though, but sometimes trying something u think is stupid ends up working when anything smart fails too.
I've never caught a pike on a Suick hahaha, but had sooooo many check it out or do that fake/missing strike crap that they do that I think after reading other guys replys and your experience that a dive n rise in a pike pattern should definitely be attempted.
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Posts: 386
| 7.62xJay - 6/27/2023 12:11 AM
I've never caught a pike on a Suick hahaha, but had sooooo many check it out or do that fake/missing strike crap that they do that I think after reading other guys replys and your experience that a dive n rise in a pike pattern should definitely be attempted.
It's so wild how we can get such different results. There are two factors that keep me from using Suicks more frequently; first is that for whatever reason my ability to keep muskies pinned on Suicks is abysmal. Second, is that I end up catching a stupid amount of pike on them. |
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Posts: 620
Location: Seymour, WI | Suick. |
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