Quote:
Originally Posted by OL_JR
And you will probably do just fine. Nothing wrong with keeping it simple, I know if I had to choose between having a bajillion dollar tackle set up or a few lures and gas to get to a good pike lake I'm taking the gas everytime.
Just like hunting, objective numero uno is being where the game is in the first place.
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I live about a 100 yards from the shore of Slave Lake. I've got a couple canoes ready to go on the bank, and a boat in the driveway, but the last couple years I've actually mostly just stuck with shore casting. Anyhow it gives me lots of time to experiment, allot of the time that most people would spend watching TV I get to spend fishing for pike and walleye.
The brass/ silver spoon thing is only a slight downgrade from what I'm already using. Basically I use the LT spoons in yellow patterns and orange patterns, Williams in silver and gold, twister tails in black and white. I keep a couple spinner baits in the box, mostly because they make for very hassle free trolling from the canoes, and a couple inline spinners because I've run into the odd dirty water instance where they work better than spoons.
For the season opener I pretty much always use big herring under a bobber, and I'd say this is probably my highest percentage tactic for big pike. A couple observations on deadbaiting however:
1st of all, impart some movement, I rarely let my bait sit for a minuet or two without giving the line a tug, splashing the bobber around like a topwater also attracts fish. This also helps the presentation cover more water than just leaving it stationary.
Deadbaiting works best if you have an area where fish are concentrated. For instance, I often have big pike hanging out over shallow rocky flats for the season opener... and deadbaiting never works as well as casting lures in these areas because the fish are scattered and the deadbait just doesnt cover enough water. Other sorts of areas where they are more concentrated however, and deadbaiting works wonders.
Its water temperature sensitive, due to my current low tech approach I cant give an exact number. But on my home water I typically know how many weeks of good deadbaiting I have by watching how late the ice goes off... if theres still lots of ice on the water for opening day I can expect deadbaiting to be killer for about 3 weeks... other years it might only work marginally well for a few days.