I was out fishing today for bass, from shore in the rain, no one else around. Threw a crank bait. Caught a northern. Threw a spoon. Caught a northern, somewhat expected. Drifted a weightless Texas rigged worm through a channel, saw the line moving, set the hook, fish on for a few seconds, then cut line. Pretty sure it was a northern. I didn’t think northerns would take a plastic worm. Not a bass to be found by me today. Still fun to be out.
Bob P
Does it move? Then a northern will eat it. They’re like puppies with gills.
I’m thinking about this….I’ve caught Northerns on spoons, plugs, flies, crankbaits, top waters, plastic worms, jigs, spinner rigs, globs of night crawlers, leeches, frogs, jerk baits, Musky bucktails, and minnows. I can’t think of any kind of bait I’ve ever used that hasn’t been attractive to pike. They’re great!
S.R.
Steve – How does your line not get cut off when a northern takes a Texas rigged worm? I use 8 lb mono.
Oh I didn’t say I landed those Northerns, just that they hit everything I’ve ever thrown in the water. Nothing I hate more than spending half an hour tying a fly only to have a pike snip it off the line. Stuff happens.
You probably can get by with heavier line than 8# test when fishing Bass and that helps a little bit.
S.R.
Especially this time of year the pike are putting the feed bag on. A good fluorocarbon leader can help getting bit off.
Especially this time of year the <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>pike are putting the feed bag on. A good fluorocarbon leader can help getting bit off.
This. Like every species, pike are feeding heavily over the next month. While they still hit plastics its far less that cranks or spinnerbaits.
I think they’re more likely to hit a moving/flashy lure, but yes they’ll bite just about anything you have in the water, live bait or artificial. Don’t you just love it when you tie on a brand new $15 jerk bait and you snap it and the jerk bait is gone? lol
I had a Canadian guide tell a story of a nice pike follow while fishing with a spoon. He let the spoon drift to the bottom and waited out the fish. Eventually the pike grabbed the dead spoon laying on the bottom.
I posted this on another thread… but yeah Northerns will hit about any worm if so motivated – even a 2.75 inch Nerd TRD.
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Nice fish and a great pic there FryDog 
-J.
Nice fish and a great pic there FryDog
-J.
Well then, here’s the same fish but my fishing partner trying to floss before a clean release 
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I don’t know if others have noticed, but I seem to get many more pike on jigworms compared to T-rigged worms. Maybe because I tend to fish the jigworms a little more aggressive and popping them off weeds? I dunno. But yeah, pike’ll eat anything, even plastic. 
I went on a fly-in one year and we had multiple occasions of pike attacking our marker buoys. ‘Lure’ takes on a pretty broad meaning up there on those remote lakes.
I’m originally from the east coast. If you ever experienced a “bluefish blitz”, you’ll know when lure choice doesn’t matter. Throw a topwater and the second it hits the water, it’s “fish on”. A chunk of wood with a hook in it would work.
Here’s a good video of a bluefish blitz
Believe it or not i had a pike biting my vexilar transducer below the ice one day. Was super confused why the float on it kept going up and down. Crazy fish.
Had one casually chewing fish on a stringer before. Did some pretty good damage before we noticed anything was going on. Figured a strike and thrash would have been the normal method.
I was slip bobbering once, caught the same small pike 3 times
The worst is a wacky rigged worm they get right to your line and ‘snip” Spinners tend to not get snipped when you burn them over a flat. Lately I have ben letting spinners drop down on the weed edge-bass love that technique pike do too but the slack and slower speed leads to more snip offs. Pike keep the tackle stores in business!
Pike keep the tackle stores in business!
Ha!
Pike are definitely indiscriminate when it comes to biting. I think the biggest pike I got on a worm was a 10#er early in the morning as a kid. That was a blast. It was one of those bites where after the lift when you let it fall the line starts moving toward you. So you reel up the slack and can tell its a good fish when it gets taut. I was fortunate the gap was right in the corner of it’s mouth.
I don’t know how many times I would get a worm back after a peck and either the tail was nipped off or there was a row of slices in the worm. I went through a lot more worms up there.
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