Went to Pigeon on Saturday. This time on the South side. Not too bad! If it wasn't for the big snowpile in front of the lake, it would have been easy driving. Hoofed it out there and it really wasn't a hard walk.
Make it short, saw a number of whites. Hooked 2 early on but lost them. One was a behemoth white. Fished from 5 FOW out to 20 FOW - covered some area. Saw a lot more out in the 10-15 FOW area. Came close plenty of times but went home skunked.
Decided to head back on Sunday since I knew it was going to be sunny. Got there just before sunrise. Used the same holes as Saturday and left the auger back. Started out shallow but only saw a couple. Hooked and lost an absolute monster white. It's always a guess but based on the ones that have made it up...probably in the 6-7 lb class.
Anyways, it smelled like a repeat. I headed out to about 12 FOW. Dropped down, white came in and then I proceeded to scare the hell out of it. Never came back. It was still very early but I was considering packing up since the better weather didn't seem to matter. Then, the light switch went on! Had a white come in and miss when I was about mid-way. Dropped down and it followed, then, went out of sight of the hole and came back in perfectly lined up and took the hook. I hand over handed this one up and out before it even fought. It looked big to me but I gave it a quick whack and dropped the hook down again. Had another white come in on the way down. Just missed on this one. Then another...miss! Game on time!
The hour was pretty amazing fishing. I had another white come out of nowhere and set itself on the hook it seemed. This one I let run. I could not tell the size but from the squeal of the reel, I thought it must be decent. Had a great tug of back and forth. The 'TICK-TICK-TICK' of the line on the bottom of the hole made be cringe every time. It was pretty damn exciting! Fish kept running every time I got it close to the hole. I finally got it turned and up. Had a tough time fitting my hand around this one and had to scope it out. Huge white!
The rest of the time I had several more come in and take the hook only to set it and watch it come out - 3 in row like this. One of those days where I could have easily reached my limit with a bit more luck. Can't complain though, the fishing was plain awesome! Also, managed a nice smaller walleye and then a fat big walleye back to back. Looked at my watch, 9:30 a.m.....
Spent about a half hour talking with an older couple that had walked out from their cabin. Very Ukranian folks
They had a hand auger so I showed them the holes I made and they were quite pleased to use them.
When I get home I put the whites on the scale and they are 4.4 and 4.1 lbs each. I was guessing around 3 at first. Man Pigeon has just huge whites. Such a pleasure. Half of one is enough for two people. Both where perfect specimens - no worms - lots of meat. So, got on the phone to some family and it is fish fry heaven tonight.
Still 2 weeks left for Pigeon. I'm sure I'll get out again.
Cheers!