20 lb+ Wabamun Pike Hunt Continued...

[67Elmo]

With the brand new Humminbird 587 ci HD sonar my son and I hit the lake to continue our quest to catch a 20 lb + Wabamun pike this month.

It was rough and cold this morning, but by afternoon the lake was quite calm and peaceful. The new sonar worked great and we played with the GPS function. The surface water temperature was 10.1C this morning and warmed to 12.1C by the late afternoon.

The bottom line is we boated about 30 pike. The biggest was 35", we had two 34" fish, a 32" and the rest were 24-28". Basically we anchored on the drop offs, for example a 6 ft. flat that dropped off suddenly to around 20 ft in only 10 or 20 yards. We seemed to catch most of the pike in 11-15 ft. water. I used 8" herring straight down from the boat about a foot off the bottom and son used a quarter ounce jig with a frozen minnow. He caught the biggest and the most, but I told him I purposely let him do this so he would have more confidence in life.....:)

A couple of thoughts from going big pike hunting with herring 3 times in the last 10 or so days....

1/ with a 9" herring as bait, you don't catch smaller pike as a rule. The certainly take the bait, but when you set the hook they just aren't there. As a rough rule of thumb, I found a pike needed to be 28-30" to catch them with the herring. This is big enough for them to have the entire herring in their mouth. The smaller pike seem to have the herring perhaps by the middle, and its simply not fully in their mouth, so you don't catch very many of the smaller ones.

2/ the best success was at around 11-15 ft. in depth on a rapid drop off that would go roughly from 6 ft. to 25 ft. in only 20 or 30 yards. We caught very few in deeper than 16 ft. and the shallow water (6-9 ft.) only seemed to have the small pike. Mind you this could and probably will change when the lake turns over (probably in a few more days). This is where the new sonar came in. We explored and even found and marked the reef west off Fallis point with the GPS feature. The reef only produced today for us 2 or 3, 24-26" pike. But I'm sure other days would be "red hot" off this reef.

So no 20 lb pike (about 40-44" long, depending on girth) and we didn't hook or loose any big ones today. But I still have a month or more, and hope springs eternal....I plan to get out 3 or 4 more times before the lake freezes...

Here's a couple of photos from today of the bigger pike we caught, 35 and 34 inches respectively.

[waterninja]

didn't know who you were when we were talking to you at the boat launch at dusk (we were in the misty river). hope your right about another month of fishing and hopefully we'll see you out there again. good-luck on the 20 pounder.

[Alberta Bigbore]

Nice fish congrats

[Teamprotz]

Keep on it , put in the time and when you least expect it , wham !

[Geezle]

Keep on it , put in the time and when you least expect it , wham !

Nice fish guys!

It was good meeting up and chatting with you guys, brief though it was. We only hung around 'the nursery' for an hour or so with very limited success before we headed back for Fallis.

The funny thing is, we saw a boat around where you guys were when we came back and started to head for it...then we realized it wasn't you and we kept trolling along...and then once we were almost out of earshot I realized it was YeeHaw and waterninja out there :lol:

[Wild&Free]

At the right angle, with enough beer those sewer sharks almost look like a pretty fish.

[EZM]

Sounds like you guys had fun .....

The reef, as Geezle mentions, does contain lots of smaller pike, but the big one I emailed you, not posted on forum, came from there so there are a few good areas on the reef where the bigger girls are babysitting the nursery.

The key point is big girls eat pike they don't chase perch in the weeds, they ambush 2-3lb pike in the nursery.

[Geezle]

Sounds like you guys had fun .....

The reef, as Geezle mentions, does contain lots of smaller pike, but the big one I emailed you, not posted on forum, came from there so there are a few good areas on the reef where the bigger girls are babysitting the nursery.

The key point is big girls eat pike they don't chase perch in the weeds, they ambush 2-3lb pike in the nursery.

'The nursery' and 'the reef' are two different spots ;)


The nursery is pretty much the biiiiig bay over by Sundance.

[EZM]

'The nursery' and 'the reef' are two different spots ;)


The nursery is pretty much the biiiiig bay over by Sundance.

Gotcha ..... kinda like the reef is the ridge and the humps are the bluffs..... lol.

I know that a few guys I've talked to complained about the size of the pike out there, so I made the assumption.

I think alot of smaller pike get pushed away from the best shore areas, are forced way out there to the ridge (or reef) and the really big girls feed on these 2-3lbers all the time that are up on the top and around the drop.

We were marking a pretty decent sized school of fish just off that structure and I'd bet these are whites, which also make a tasty meal for the really big girls I date.

Seems like the big girls might have a choice out there, pike in and up the ridge or whites out on the deep side.

Trolling a giant white/silver crank, down at 20ft has produced some nice results around that area.

[ddddd05]

This has been a great thread. I would like to add a couple things. When using the dead bait method, small trebles are great. I have found that you get a good hook set in the side or roof of the mouth. I hate hooking a big pike deep because they are unlikely to survive. Also, the longer they have the bait in their mouth the greater the chance they will be stomach hooked. Yes you may lose a couple, but it's better in the long run.

I was out at Wabamun on Friday night just before dark and caught a nice pike around 14 pounds on a Rattling Rap in about 9 FOW. Biggest pike of the year for me. I went out the next day to the same spot and just caught one smaller one.

[67Elmo]

Well, despite the cold windy weather, I'm a glutton for punishment. So I headed out this morning (Monday). I don't think the temperature got above +5C, and the northwest wind was pretty brisk. Whitecaps for much of the day.

We caught about 30 pike, between 28-35 inches. I included a photo of a 35 inch fish that probably went a good 10 lbs. My 9" herring caught about 10, but the jig and minnow my son and a buddy were using caught about 20. Fishing was spotty. Nothing, then after 20 minutes we could have a couple of double headers on. Best fishing again for us was the drop offs where a 5 ft. area dropped off into 20 or so ft. suddenly.

WE ALMOST ACCOMPLISHED THE GOAL OF A 20 LB PIKE TODAY! Why do the big ones get off? A jig and minnow produced a real whopper, and we had it right beside the boat after an awesome fight. Then it just seemed to spit the jig. The line was tight, no mistakes were made, the fish simply got off. However this was significantly larger than the 38" 14 - 15 lb pike I caught last week. I'd guess a good 40" or a bit longer and fat. If it didn't hit 20 lbs it would have been very close. I guess events like this keep you coming back...

Here's the photo of a 35" fish from this morning. We hope to get back a couple of times before the freeze up and catch the big sister of the one that got away today.

[waterninja]

your getting closer buddy. i know you'll get one one of these days. must have been cold out there today.

[NEWB]

Who's jig was that..... ;)

I'm ready to catch that bad girl again!

It was a cold bit solid day of decent sized pike!

[EZM]

Nice job Elmo, wish I was there, despite the cold. I'm going to try and sneak out this weeks and hammer a few fattys.

Your catch rates and sizes are improving, you will land a 20 soon .......

[thorne]

Its just a numbers game my friend. You have the location and techniques. When we met up with you guys sat I was fishing big bait and geezle was using minnows and he definitely caught more....but I think I landed the larger fish at least by 1. We were also seeing large minnow schools as well which triggered the hits on the minnows. We did hook a few pigs but couldn't get them in the boat. Simple fact is keep doing what you are doing. The whole area from the fallis shelf to the reef has very large pike hunting. Eventually one is going to grab on and not let go. Plus side is hard water is on the way and typically produces more 20lbers.　i have no doubt you'll be posting soon!　　

[EZM]

The hunt will continue on Saturday. Trophy Pike and I will be there in my black smokercraft ..... come say HI and tell us some lies !!!!

We are planning on skipping the 20lbers and going right to 30lbers ..... lol. The problem is, unlike the "A Team" and Hanibals plans, our plans sometimes don't work ....lol.

[pelada trochu]

Awe man i wanna catch some fish. Im already in withdrawl. Been snappy. Right arm flying up all of a sudden and spilling my coffee. Wife even heard me say fish on during whoopee the other day. Shedidnt seem to like it much. Just kidding. :sHa_shakeshout:

Make sure you post it here first. Dont send it to espn or something.

[67Elmo]

Well I got out again today with my buddy Dave. Fishing was tough largely due to a good east wind for most of the day. For most of the day the pike seemed to have lockjaw. For example at a drop off where we caught about 30 fish only a few days ago...we caught one. I think the saying is "When the wind is from the east the fish bite least".

Late in the afternoon the wind died down and this seemed to spur the fish a bit. We ended up boating about 20 in total, the vast majority clones of each other at 28" long. The herring dead bait I was using was outfished about 2 to 1 by my buddy and his jig and minnow under the anchored boat.

We did try trolling a bit, and Dave caught our big boy of the day, 37" and about 12 lb. on a Magnum Rapala trolled in about 18 ft. of water, photo attached. While its always great to get out, we had to work hard today, and no 20 lb fish yet. But there are still a couple of weeks until October is over and I hope to get out a couple of times more.

[waterninja]

still time left. i'm sure you'll get her sooner or later.