I figured I would provide this report because I got into the best big pike fishing in my life last week up in NW Ontario on the English River system, and there are many on here that make trips to Canada every year.
Where we go the camp considers a pike over 38 inches a “trophy”. Between my dad and I we caught 13 fish over 38 inches with 5 of them over 40 inches in 6 days of fishing, which was well above our average of 4 or 5 “trophies” in a week up there.
The water temps on the main lake were 41 degrees when we launched the first day, however it didn’t take long to find dramatically warmer temps (58-60 degrees) in some of the larger bays that were separated from the main lake by either channels or narrows. However, it wasn’t as simple as finding warm water. A true big fish pattern developed when I landed our first big pike (40.5 inches) on the 4th pass through a stretch of shoreline no longer than 20 yards. With literally hundreds of miles of shoreline we don’t often make more than a couple of passes even through the best looking spots because there is always more great looking water ahead, but I used the musky fishing mentality of not leaving fish to find fish and we essentially kept covering the same small stretch until we didn’t catch fish and then on the 4th pass through I was rewarded with a big fish.
I quickly concluded that the combination of 3+ days of a SE wind leading up to our arrival (pay attention to what is going on weather wise before you get to camp, not just once you get there) and warmer temps in the backs of bays would be the target locations for big pike. For example in a 200 acre bay that essentially fishes the same all the way around we caught 3 big pike in a 50 yard stretch in the NW corner and nothing but little pike on the W and E shores of the bay.
Essentially the warmer water got the fish active all over the bay, but the steady wind blowing into the north and west sides of these bays really concentrated the big fish. This general pattern held up for 4 days while the weather was stable and accounted for all but 2 of the big pike and most of the nice walleye as well. I included a picture of my biggest pike for the week, which was 42.5” and as fat as I have ever seen for that time of year. Once the weather changed to 45 degrees and raining and a 25 MPH north wind, we had to essentially grind it out, but still managed 2 more 38”+ pike and a bunch of nice walleyes.
Another important thing to note was that if you only fished the shoreline in these bays you were only catching probably half of the available big fish. A few really nice fish were caught in the middle of the bays, which were still for the most part less than 6 feet of water.
As far as lure selection goes I am a Glidin Rap addict for pike. I am not sure if there is a more fun way to catch pike than on a Glidin Rap, they attack that lure with reckless abandon. My second choice would be the Flat Rap in the largest size (1oz.) worked very erratically. Unfortunately this lure has been discontinued by Rapala.
The last observation I will make is on the walleyes. They were definitely still trying to wrap up the spawn in some parts of the lake, but that didn’t mean that you couldn’t still find big females somewhere. I was in the lodge on the last night talking to the owners and squaring up the bill and another guy from another group was doing the same thing and he commented on how poor the walleye fishing was. I asked him if he was jigging and rigging and the sort and he said yes. I mentioned that we caught plenty of walleyes to keep us busy all week long even in the bad weather casting crank baits and using slip bobbers while eating our sandwiches at lunch. He replied with “well we don’t really cast much” and went back to his business. I would rather cast crank baits or twitch baits any day over jigging or rigging, but it really comes down to what presentation is going to catch fish.
I have been to Canada 20+ times now, and 13 to this specific camp and what made this year the best ever for big pike were 3 main things. The first was the big difference in water temp from the main lake to the bays (up to a 20 degree difference), and the second was stable weather for 7 days (3 days before we arrived and the first 4 days we were there) and finally not leaving an active area to try and search for more fish.
very nice!