Readers Cast

NORTHERN PIKE

Dave Rosset (anglerdave) - January 04, 2010

A year or so ago my wife and I saw the movie The Bucket List with Jack Nicolson and Morgan Freeman. The story centered on two men from different walks of life (both socially and economically) who were diagnosed with cancer and shared a hospital room together. Nicolson’s character decided that he would make up a list of the things he wanted to do before he kicked the bucket. Being the more daring and affluent one of the two, he persuaded Morgan Freeman’s character to join him on his adventure.

Like many fly fisherman (and women) there are some species of fish that I would like to catch on a fly rod before it comes time to hang up my waders. My list is not extensive: Cutthroat trout, striped bass, bone fish, northern pike and musky. Realistically, I suspect I’ll accomplish all but the bone fish and possibly striped bass. After all when you live in the Midwest access to bonefish and stripers are not close to the back door. This past summer my wife Judy and I had been offered a friend’s cottage on a small lake just north of Hayward Wisconsin.  We set the date as the last week of August and when I inquired about the fish in the lake, my friend told me there were largemouth bass, bluegills and northern pike.

Not knowing a whole lot about fly fishing for northern, I resourced the internet and read everything I could. Although a 9wt fly rod seemed to be the weapon of choice, I found out that an 8wt would suffice. Providing the flies you were throwing and the pike you were throwing them at were not too big. And for the most part, all you needed was a heavy weight forward floating fly line and a leader with some type of bite tippet. My wife seemed relieved when I told her that outside of a couple of leaders and a few flies I had everything I needed to pursue the toothy critters. Before leaving for our vacation a friend from work brought me in a box of rabbit strip leeches that he had used on a pike fishing trip to Canada.

This was our first vacation to Wisconsin and like any good husband who has a non-fly fishing spouse I wanted to make sure that I spent quality time with my wife seeing the sites and not all my time fishing.  So one of the first places we went was to see the National Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward. And we did manage to take a morning trip over to Park Falls to see where St Croix rods were made. Which as it turned out was a good thing since they had some of their rods on sale and Judy insisted if not begged me to buy a new 8wt 4 pc fly rod.

At normal levels, the lake where we stayed encompasses approximately 70 acres. But a severe drought had reduced its size somewhat. And when I first went down to take a look it did not look all that promising. But my buddy Greg had told me that earlier that summer one of his sons had caught a 36” northern while plug fishing. Not being familiar with the area and since the lake was an easy walk from the back door, I decided that I would fish this lake and if it were to be, here is where I would scratch northern pike off of my bucket list.

During my pre-trip research, I learned that Northern Pike do not feed at night but only during the day. And that they prefer to hang out near weeds and lily pads in shallow warm bays. And unlike their cousins the Musky, they are not the fish of a thousand casts and will aggressively, providing they are in the mood, attack a fly. And while they may not be the fish of a thousand casts, they are certainly the fish of a thousand “blow ups” when compared to hook ups. The first time this happened, I darned near jumped out of my skin and almost fell out of the small v-bottom aluminum boat I was standing up in.

My first (and only) Northern Pike of the trip was caught in the late afternoon as the shadows were beginning to fall on the western shore.  I was wade fishing a small point not far from the dock. And although I had purchased a few Pike flies from the Hayward Fly Shop, I was using one of the rabbit strip bunny leeches that I had brought along. It felt like I was casting a wet piece of carpet as I tried to make a decent cast. Strip, strip, pause and repeat the process. The strike wasn’t all that violent, but strong enough to cause me to squeeze the rod grip a bit tighter with my right hand.

At first I couldn’t tell how big a fish I had. But, I knew it was bigger than any of the “hammer handles” you hear so much about that are caught while trolling for walleyes. And for some reason I knew that it was not all that big either. As it turned out, it was a good fish of 24” or a bit better. Not having a camera, I removed the piece of wet carpet from its mouth measured it against my rod, admired it a bit and let it go.

So my first fly rod caught Northern Pike was pretty uneventful, but satisfying none the less. But when you stop and think about it, doesn’t the first of anything most of us do normally turns out that way.

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