An addicted freshman pike fisherman looking for help

[pikeluer]

Hi all! This is my first thread in this forum and finally I am releasing my question for a while- How to find and catch a pike bigger than 5 lbs?
First of all, I am kinda a brand new fisherman. I started to fish like 4 years ago when I came to Canada. Back then I was only using pickeral rigs to do some static fishing. I have caught some northerns and walleyes for sure but nothing bigger than 3 lb.
Last summer, my friend took me out for lure fishing, which I heard about but never believed it would work. How possible could a fish bite a piece of moving metal? Nevertheless I cast and cast until I got my first lured pike on. That thrill was unreal even for now. And it was at that time I knew that is something I would like to keep exploring.
Since then, I started to accumulate my lure fishing gear little by little. I even moved out of the apartment to move into a house with a garage to store my kayak and fishing gears and to carry my kayak and gears, I updated my small Chevy Sonic to a SUV.
Pike is my motivation.
So far I have caught probably more than 150-200 pikes but mostly in the range of 1-2 lbs with less than 5 fish more than 3 lb and the biggest will be 4 lb ish. At the present stage I think I would like to go for bigger instead of hooking up tens of fish one day. I would like to take any suggestion or comments so long as they make sense.
Finally as I am always going fishing solo as few friends around me have passion going for pikes, I would definitely love to have a fishing buddy who enjoys similar sense of fishing lol.
Tight lines fishermen.

[Grizzly Adams1]

My thought has always been, you have to go to Northern Saskatchewan to catch the big boys consistently. On my bucket list. I used to do a lot of pike fishing in my younger days, slough sharks, my smallest record was 8" on a 6 " lure. Lures ? There's a tale about someone losing his false teeth over the side of the boat and a pike striking them before they hit bottom. My dad got one from an oil man, caught up there so big we had to turn the tail to get it in the freezer.

[spurly]

If you like lure fishing for pike, you would love fly fishing for pike, throwing 6inch streamers.

[Rvsask]

You can catch pike on so many different lures and big pike will eat little baits at times for sure. That said, Chuck big baits . Since my kids were old enough to tag along, we’ve let go hundreds of pike over 40”. The majority fell to big baits.

Obviously you have to fish where they exist but that doesn’t make it a gimme. I know countless people that fish where I fish that have never caught a 40” fish. I feel like I could ramble for days about this topic, I love fishing big pike, walleye are the consolation prize and generally targeted when the big pike bite is slow.

Do Not overlook proximity to deep water and suspended pike following ciscoes and whites. We’ve caught 45” pike in 35 feet of water casting and retrieving the biggest Williams whitefish spoon you can find. (Hammered brass and silver)
Sometimes I get lazy and troll a 12” Flatstick (rubs about 10’ down) over big expanses of deep water like this in close proximity to fast depth change. Luckily I fish a lake where I can do this over a two mile long stretch where the depth plummets from 10-12” to over 35 in relatively short fashion. I try keep the bait in the top half of the water column.

Also, do not overlook sandy stretches. We regularly fish a location we simply call “the sand flats” on choppy days. It’s a massive expanse of nothing but sand, 6-8 feet deep. Certain conditions at times obviously move bait into areas like this and the big pike follow. We just let the waves move us along and fan cast constantly. For some reason the best lure by a landslide here is maps syclops spoon, again in either gold or silver, the biggest you can buy. It’s likely the smallest thing we consistently throw for pike. Vary the speed of your retrieve and stop reeling at times to let it fail and flutter in a downward spiral, hang on here. Lol

PM me if you want so I don’t type away here for the next hour.

[Smoky buck]

Read the other thread asking about southern Alberta 40” pike for starters

Location on the body of water, appropriate gear, good size bait/lure, mid/larger body of water, first/last light, find large bait numbers in lake, and timing would be some of the biggest factors

I find ice fishing and bait fishing boring so I don’t do it often. When I do I dead stick large herring.

For lures I have 3 main go to styles

Jerk baits: I use gliders, hybrid jerk baits, and dive & rise style jerk baits. Dive & rise with lots of hang time/slow rise is my top choice for this style of fishing

Rubber: paddle tail swimbaits and curly tails with hang time. Paddle tail style baits for covering ground and curly tail for jigging/pull pause in deeper water

Blades: spinner baits, bucktails, and tail spins(one I make the ones on the market are too small). Blades are king in dirty/low visibility water. Spinner baits are semi weedless and can be good burning trough shallow weeds. Buck tail is better in deeper water. My tail spins are their own deal that I can burn in or pull pause in mid range depths

These lures are heavy and the big blade create a lot of drag. My lures are often 2-6oz. This involves running a rod that can handle the lure weight and stiff enough to run my jerk baits. Basically I am using smaller to mid size musky rod. Big blades are hard on reels so a solid bait caster is wise

[Rvsask]

Originally Posted by Smoky buck

Read the other thread asking about southern Alberta 40” pike for starters

Location on the body of water, appropriate gear, good size bait/lure, mid/larger body of water, first/last light, find large bait numbers in lake, and timing would be some of the biggest factors

I find ice fishing and bait fishing boring so I don’t do it often. When I do I dead stick large herring.

For lures I have 3 main go to styles

Jerk baits: I use gliders, hybrid jerk baits, and dive & rise style jerk baits. Dive & rise with lots of hang time/slow rise is my top choice for this style of fishing

Rubber: paddle tail swimbaits and curly tails with hang time. Paddle tail style baits for covering ground and curly tail for jigging/pull pause in deeper water

Blades: spinner baits, bucktails, and tail spins(one I make the ones on the market are too small). Blades are king in dirty/low visibility water. Spinner baits are semi weedless and can be good burning trough shallow weeds. Buck tail is better in deeper water. My tail spins are their own deal that I can burn in or pull pause in mid range depths

These lures are heavy and the big blade create a lot of drag. My lures are often 2-6oz. This involves running a rod that can handle the lure weight and stiff enough to run my jerk baits. Basically I am using smaller to mid size musky rod. Big blades are hard on reels so a solid bait caster is wise

Good advice. Biggest pike I ever caught was on a 16” double blade buck tail. That thing was like casting a hammer.