A mere 30 minutes into our day returning customer Sonny put the beans to a big BIG fish. We were working plastics (GO FIGURE) when I saw him stick a fish. He was reefing on it a bit when I hollered……”WHOA WHOA WHOA SONNY!!” The fish flat out never gave an inch, and then started slowly moving away from us as if to scoff at our possibility of landing her. Still as my grandpa would say “It had your name on it” The stars aligned this morning and this Rainy Lake MONSTER was CPR’d to fight another day. I couldn’t help but think of Sonny’s new PB pike as simply “Old School” BIG!! I was absolutley amped for Sonny and that magnificent fish. In fact I even offered to let him have the rest of the day off…..Though he kindly declined. 
This is the kind of fish we are used to seeing as we ponder the good ole days. Fact of the matter is back in the day this BEAST would have been hacked up and fed a family of 8. Surely removing Y-bones hadn’t even been thought of yet, and dad would have placed some bread in the middle of the table. “If you get a bone eat some bread kids!”
Well these days we feel VERY fortunate to be living yesterdays memories on a daily basis!! We set our sights on OLD SCHOOL BIG……AND SONNY THAT IS SIMPLY “OLD SCHOOL”!!
CONGRATS on your 45.5 inch 22lb Pike!! That is our 4th pike reaching 20lbs since May 1st. BTW the “Fishing Queens” 43 incher is holding a 2nd place ribbon already early in the season. She’s gonna be cranky!!!
Now for this years first story beyond pictures. As a guy who likes to back up a story with pics this is almost hard to even to talk about with no visuals. Still “It is……What it is!!” Later on this afternoon I stuck what felt like a snapping turtle. No hard runs, but very heavy. I swore for the first 5 minutes I had a Freakishly large walleye. We followed the fish around with the Terrova 101 for probably about 10 minutes (Seemed like an hour!!) When my customer and I both got a look at what was simply a SCARY BIG PIKE!! This was NOT a “Ski” it was definately a Pike. Now I’m not going to lie we were fishing for big walleyes, but it is my belief these Freakishly large “Jacks” were eating our coveted walleye sandwiches!! Trust me NOBODY cared!! This pike was arguably the largest pike I’ve seen since I had a stickbait snapped in half about 3 years ago (That also bring back bad memories). We got 2 different looks at her as I was literally right on top of her with the Terrova as though attempting to saddle her up. I kept repeating “LET ME SEE YOU…JUST LET ME SEE YOU!!” Well I had her saddled up but she flat out “Bucked The hooks” minutes later!! Shaking in excitement (Knees Trembling) I’m positive she really never received too much tension, but this…….MEMORY broke 3 guys hearts as she spit the hook boatside. My guess…….27-30lbs. OK…..I can’t talk about it anymore. 
Keep your toes out of the water kids!! This isn’t a swimming hole this is a Fishing hole!! 
(Take a look at Sonny’s hands compared to the massive head on this fish) In all honesty this fish was NOT that heavy in comparison to it’s overall length, but the Flare of the Gils boatside had flocks of Canadian geese unsettled!!
