Helpful ReplyPike Fishing May & June

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DipseyD
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/06/14 06:13:59 (permalink)
Divemaster,
 
it is tight getting back into horseshoe....I get my 19' back in there, but have to hug the left side of the channel. Once you get in there it is 6-7' towards the middle, but pretty skinny water. I don't fish it much, but have had luck around the coast guard station. Nothing big, but some nice pike. It is a popular spot with the bass guys and kayakers, so you can run out of room real quick. Misery is decent, but I rarely stay on the main weed bed off the monument, I like to go to the north side and fish the rock line east of the entrance to horseshoe.
 
The Niagara bar is decent fishing, but it can get crowded. In my last few years up at Point Breeze we haven't taken any Atlantics.....but typically find a batch of steelies in the 500 FOW. An occasional Coho in the same area. It depends on wind and temperature, and finding the transition from clean to murky water. We did good last year in 80 FOW for lakers, and pulled one decent king. We moved out to the 500 FOW and picked up a few lakers, steelies and missed a few. One pike as well inside the seam. The east wind picked up on our third day and completely destroyed the fishing. It is amazing how temperature dependent those fish are.
 
For pike, I like to cast big bucktails or big jerk baits. Mostly Husky's. For pike, you can't be afraid to fish heavy weeds during the daytime. Mornings and evenings you can fair well right off the weeds. But....everyone is different. I like being on the big lake so much anymore I can't hardly stand to be in the bay.
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/06/14 09:48:45 (permalink)
DipseyD
Divemaster, it is tight getting back into horseshoe....I get my 19' back in there, but have to hug the left side of the channel. Once you get in there it is 6-7' towards the middle, but pretty skinny water. I don't fish it much, but have had luck around the coast guard station. Nothing big, but some nice pike. It is a popular spot with the bass guys and kayakers, so you can run out of room real quick. Misery is decent, but I rarely stay on the main weed bed off the monument, I like to go to the north side and fish the rock line east of the entrance to horseshoe. The Niagara bar is decent fishing, but it can get crowded. In my last few years up at Point Breeze we haven't taken any Atlantics.....but typically find a batch of steelies in the 500 FOW. An occasional Coho in the same area. It depends on wind and temperature, and finding the transition from clean to murky water. We did good last year in 80 FOW for lakers, and pulled one decent king. We moved out to the 500 FOW and picked up a few lakers, steelies and missed a few. One pike as well inside the seam. The east wind picked up on our third day and completely destroyed the fishing. It is amazing how temperature dependent those fish are. For pike, I like to cast big bucktails or big jerk baits. Mostly Husky's. For pike, you can't be afraid to fish heavy weeds during the daytime. Mornings and evenings you can fair well right off the weeds. But....everyone is different. I like being on the big lake so much anymore I can't hardly stand to be in the bay.


How far down were those Lakers suspended in 500 FOW, or were they right off the bottom? I fish inlines and spinnerbaits for pike but always do better on jerkbaits and swimbaits as far as strikes go, I think they like the stop and go action when in a neutral feeding mode. I'm not a big fan of fishing weeds either, but I love the fish that live in them (Pike, Musky, Gar, Bowfin, etc). It'd be awesome if there was a species of Esox that lived offshore in open water and got like 50"+, that's a fish I could get addicted to!
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DipseyD
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/06/14 10:08:24 (permalink)
At the Big O we never fish more than 200' down, even in 500 FOW. Again, it is all about temperature. It is best to have a fish hawk.....which is a absolute necessity to be serious about eliminating bad water. I think the oxygen is too limited in the deep depths for trout and salmon. The first time we fished 500 FOW I was absolutely baffled that the fish were just cruising somewhat shallow. Once the water warms in July the fish will move out towards the currents in the main lake, that pushed the good fishing a few miles off shore. You don't have to head far to hit 300 up to 500 FOW. If you hit 600, turn around....you are in Canada (somewhat). I run 200 feet of steel cable on my riggers, and I can't recall ever using all the length. Even at 150 feet down, with blow-back you are actually much less.....this is where the fish hawk works well to tell actual depth the ball is at.
 
 When we fish deep water from July through August, we catch a mix bag in the deep water. Ontario differs from lake Erie due to the current and temp differences (layers). East winds are a bad deal up there, usually moving the colder water back towards the west....shuts them right down. In Erie we tend to focus our laker fishing to the deepest depths of the US side (100ish feet), but depth is relative. They head to those depths because that is the only place the water is the correct and comfortable temperature come summer. When you are dealing with depths up to and over 500', you have to consider oxygen and temperature. So, it makes sense that the lakers don't have to hunker down to stay comfortable.
 
The site, LOU (Lake Ontario United) is a wealth of info.....and those guys don't keep secrets. There economy depends on guys like yourself coming up and spending cash....whereas sometimes the lake Erie guys like to keep a tight lip. The info you can gain there will even help you in Erie. If you go up there, take a couple cases of Blue light.....give a few out at the docks, Expecially to charter guys at the end of the day. I have had them give me free lures, and a lot of good info. It is a chasing game up there, you got to cover water and stay in the temp zones. Last year we had a very nice captain who took us out on hos boat for a couple hours to help us be able to get on fish the next day.
 
Warning though, if you go up when a fishing tournament is happening, they too get tight lipped. These guys are out battling for well over $10K, so they protect their spots come hammer time.    
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/06/14 11:11:29 (permalink)
DipseyD
At the Big O we never fish more than 200' down, even in 500 FOW. Again, it is all about temperature. It is best to have a fish hawk.....which is a absolute necessity to be serious about eliminating bad water. I think the oxygen is too limited in the deep depths for trout and salmon. The first time we fished 500 FOW I was absolutely baffled that the fish were just cruising somewhat shallow. Once the water warms in July the fish will move out towards the currents in the main lake, that pushed the good fishing a few miles off shore. You don't have to head far to hit 300 up to 500 FOW. If you hit 600, turn around....you are in Canada (somewhat). I run 200 feet of steel cable on my riggers, and I can't recall ever using all the length. Even at 150 feet down, with blow-back you are actually much less.....this is where the fish hawk works well to tell actual depth the ball is at.  When we fish deep water from July through August, we catch a mix bag in the deep water. Ontario differs from lake Erie due to the current and temp differences (layers). East winds are a bad deal up there, usually moving the colder water back towards the west....shuts them right down. In Erie we tend to focus our laker fishing to the deepest depths of the US side (100ish feet), but depth is relative. They head to those depths because that is the only place the water is the correct and comfortable temperature come summer. When you are dealing with depths up to and over 500', you have to consider oxygen and temperature. So, it makes sense that the lakers don't have to hunker down to stay comfortable. The site, LOU (Lake Ontario United) is a wealth of info.....and those guys don't keep secrets. There economy depends on guys like yourself coming up and spending cash....whereas sometimes the lake Erie guys like to keep a tight lip. The info you can gain there will even help you in Erie. If you go up there, take a couple cases of Blue light.....give a few out at the docks, Expecially to charter guys at the end of the day. I have had them give me free lures, and a lot of good info. It is a chasing game up there, you got to cover water and stay in the temp zones. Last year we had a very nice captain who took us out on hos boat for a couple hours to help us be able to get on fish the next day. Warning though, if you go up when a fishing tournament is happening, they too get tight lipped. These guys are out battling for well over $10K, so they protect their spots come hammer time.    


I need to get myself a fish hawk for down temps, but it's not in the budget right now, nor is a water wolf camera I'd like :), hopefully next year, though! Kind of funny, I don't know why it does it but the way my fishfinder is set I can see what depth my balls are at under the boat, they actually show up on the screen! Plus it's actually very accurate XD. Maybe it's because the rigger cables only clear the swim platform (and fish finder) by 1-30" at any given time LOL. Either way, it's working for me and I can tell when bouncing bottom for Lakers. We've only got 150' of cable on the riggers now and I'm afraid to let out more than 135-140' of it (that it's unwind from the spool), so I might have to get some more if we head to Lake 'O.
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DipseyD
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/06/15 05:38:36 (permalink)
I got a thru hull transducer, so I can't see mine unless I get deep. I remember the first my Uncle saw my Hummingbird 858 HD DI when we were king fishing, he kept telling me we were marking all kinds of fish.....turns out it was just the ball going up and down with the waves.
 
Changed my mind today with the forecast for tomorrow....heading to Lake Erie around 10AM to troll the dump. I made good marks there two weeks ago and am hoping something turns on with the front moving in.
 
I used to have 150' on my riggers, but I overkill everything and had to change to 200'. Been thinking about trying braid at some point. My rigger cables sing like crazy about 2 mph.
 
The water wolf camera is nice and fairly affordable.....but the fish hawk is a cool tool as well (but expensive).
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johnthefisherman
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/06/20 17:51:40 (permalink)
Not to hijack the thread, and will probably **** a lot of the walleye guys off, but what the heck.

Was fishing a night bass tournament on Saturday night at Raystown, and hooked this hawg on a black swim senko. Boy, I thought I had lunker easily for a moment. 
post edited by johnthefisherman - 2016/06/20 17:52:54

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DipseyD
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/06/21 06:26:51 (permalink)
Johnthefisherman.......why would a pic of you holding up a nice walleye **** on walleye guys ? That is a heck of a fish from any impoundment. Usually it is the other way around.....bass guys get mad when they catch a walleye.
 
We picked a pretty stead walleye bite on Wednesday night, slow on Thursday and rough water on Friday. The Ohio river was a blow out after the rains on Thursday, muddy with a bunch of debris. We went anyways and picked up some smallmouth. No walleye.
 
The big guy on Wednesday was 8#'s. We also picked up one good limit of decent perch. Same on Thursday with a 2 man limit within 2 hours, and a bunch of sheephead on Thursday, but could not get any real good ones.
 
Friday was a tummy churner....started out 2-4's, built to 5's with the stiff wind when it changed to the east with 20 know winds. Seen the small craft advisory and didn't last on the main lake much after that. Just too risky being I had some family with me.
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johnthefisherman
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/06/21 14:02:26 (permalink)
DipseyD
Johnthefisherman.......why would a pic of you holding up a nice walleye **** on walleye guys ? That is a heck of a fish from any impoundment. Usually it is the other way around.....bass guys get mad when they catch a walleye.
 
We picked a pretty stead walleye bite on Wednesday night, slow on Thursday and rough water on Friday. The Ohio river was a blow out after the rains on Thursday, muddy with a bunch of debris. We went anyways and picked up some smallmouth. No walleye.
 
The big guy on Wednesday was 8#'s. We also picked up one good limit of decent perch. Same on Thursday with a 2 man limit within 2 hours, and a bunch of sheephead on Thursday, but could not get any real good ones.
 
Friday was a tummy churner....started out 2-4's, built to 5's with the stiff wind when it changed to the east with 20 know winds. Seen the small craft advisory and didn't last on the main lake much after that. Just too risky being I had some family with me.



Lol I showed that to some of my Lake Ontario friends, who were out for Walleyes last weekend and didnt get much substantial, they were none to pleased. While I woulda killed for that to have been a bass, seeing as I got 14th out of 25 in the tournament, with mostly filler fish, Im always willing to catch a big fish, no matter what it is. 

Glad to hear you guys got into some fish no matter where you went.







post edited by johnthefisherman - 2016/06/21 14:08:14

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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/06/24 17:42:55 (permalink)
That's a nice Eyeball there, John. Get a tape on him?
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/06/24 17:48:54 (permalink)
Can't wait for this weekend! Heading up at 4 o'clock tomorrow and hope to have rods in trolling for Steelies by 7 o'clock. And with the wind prediction for Sunday I should have some time for Pike casting and trolling and maybe a bit of Gar fishing, too!
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/06/24 18:01:12 (permalink)
How do you fish for gar? A few weeks ago we saw a ton of them at conneaut lake. They'd follow but never hit anything
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/06/24 18:14:16 (permalink)
outasync
How do you fish for gar? A few weeks ago we saw a ton of them at conneaut lake. They'd follow but never hit anything


Rope lures and flies ranging from 3-8" on a medium spinning setup or #6-8 fly rod. I make them in all sizes and colors and with varying weights. I prefer unwieghted for PIB, but it's hard to cast small unweighted ones on a spinning rod. Last time I was up I landed one and got a few follows fishing a thick 8" unweighted rope on my 6'8" medium power G. Loomis Senko rod (which I never use for senkos, mainly for jigs and jerkbaits lol). The reel had 20# braid mainline to 24" of 12# Fluoro and finally 12" of 20# steel to the lure. Take caution when fishing ropes to ALWAYS use a steel leader and make sure that every fiber of rope is out of the fish's mouth before releasing it, I clip it out with nippers and gently scrape the remaining fibers out with a knife. A gar getting away with rope tangled in it is basically a death sentence because they won't be able to eat and will eventually die from starvation. Use at least a 12" steel leader to be sure, any less than that and a big one could trash and cut the line above the leader depending on the length of its beak. You can also just fish with normal spinners, spoons, jerkbaits, etc, but the bite ratio according so someone I know who fishes that way is about 1 hookup for every 8-10 strikes. Finally, you can fish live bait with treble hooks, there's a few articles out there discussing how to catch them that way.
post edited by Divemaster - 2016/06/24 18:19:56
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/06/24 20:29:18 (permalink)
They were chasing river run mantas and hellhounds. We had 1 hit but it was only on for about 10 seconds. Maybe sometime we will get lucky enough to land 1.
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johnthefisherman
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/06/25 17:56:08 (permalink)
Divemaster
That's a nice Eyeball there, John. Get a tape on him?


Didnt get an exact size, but it was too big for my dink board, so it was at least 24 inches.

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Dan Morey
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/08/01 12:40:35 (permalink)
Check this one out, Sean. Pretty unusual to catch a Presque Isle northern of this length in two feet of water in late July. Story and bigger pic are in Bob Frye's Triblive outdoors blog: http://blog.triblive.com/wild-outdoors/2016/08/01/got-teeth-anglers-land-impressive-fish/ 
 

 
 
 
 
 
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/08/08 15:45:49 (permalink)
Maynard.G.Crabs
Check this one out, Sean. Pretty unusual to catch a Presque Isle northern of this length in two feet of water in late July. Story and bigger pic are in Bob Frye's Triblive outdoors blog: http://blog.triblive.com/wild-outdoors/2016/08/01/got-teeth-anglers-land-impressive-fish/       


Nice Pike Dan! Can't wait until they pick up this fall, looking forward to Northerns, Steelhead, and Browns in the bay. Plus Lakers and Burbs in the main lake.
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Dan Morey
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/08/09 11:50:45 (permalink)
Thanks! Yeah, looking forward to fall as well.
 
I saw on Roughfish that you've been out on Ontario knocking off some lifelisters...looks like a good time!
 
-Dan
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Re: Pike Fishing May & June 2016/08/10 12:12:30 (permalink)
Maynard.G.Crabs
Thanks! Yeah, looking forward to fall as well. I saw on Roughfish that you've been out on Ontario knocking off some lifelisters...looks like a good time! -Dan


Well, one new lifer haha. Chinook Salmon was the only new species I landed, however I almost had an Atlantic Salmon. Almost as in it hit, ran for 395' then jumped three times and threw the treble hook LOL. Hopefully next year I'll be able to add the mighty 'King of Fish' to my lifelist, and maybe a Coho too!

In addition to those two Salmon, I also got in to some football Browns and giant Steelies. And man, Lake O's Steelhead just put Erie's to shame! They're so much larger on average and somehow they even fight better, if that's possible for being the same species. Probably had a lot to do with the abundance of Alewives in Lake Ontario (I'd still like to see native Ciscos come back and take their place, which would also be much healthier for the Lake Trout).
post edited by Divemaster - 2016/08/10 12:16:37
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