Crank - baiting for pike is my personal favourite. Small spoons, and plugs in the shallow bays of spring, larger plugs and spoons on drop offs, rapids or creek mouths in early summer or monster plugs and jerk baits over deep weed beds of late summer and early fall will produce massive number of trophy size pike on a regular basis as long as a few basic principals are followed.

• Increase lure size as season progresses. (as baitfish grow so should lure size)
• Different patterns work in different conditions so experiment
• The biggest pike will be in the best habitat
• If your not catching fish, experiment and don’t cast the same lure all day cause it worked well last year or yesterday
• Fish the wind, active feeding fish will be ambushing game fish that is being pushed in by the wind

Martin James The BBC host of a program the waters edge once told me that a pike will bite anything once and then proved it as he attached a drinking straw to his line and started fishing it like a popper. On his third cast he hooked and landed a 32-inch pike. Since that day I have boated many monster that would have evaded us if I would have not tried a creative approach.

Post Spawn Pattern; Small flashy baits (small Cleo’s, Ruby Eyed Wriggler, Len Thompson # 0, shallow shad raps, husky jerks, Manns one minus and spinner baits are my personal favorite) work well on actively feeding fish during the spring post spawn cycle. Casting a lure within inches of the weed growth of the shoreline and quickly retrieving it will trigger most post spawn pike into striking.

Concentrate fishing efforts to shallow bays and surrounding structure until the temperature breaks 70 degrees F pike will vacate these waters and settle into there summer pattern at this Temperature.

Summer Pattern: Pike will always be close to the baitfish and during the summer pattern we will find pike ambushing prey from a hump, a rock pile or a weed bed and working the wind blow side of these structure will 5-8 inch Stick baits like Jakes, grandmas, thunder sticks, mans one minus stretch, buck tail spinner as well as working a jerk bait like a reef hawg or a pig over the top or a weed less spoons like the Johnson silver minnow tipped with a pork trailer fished deep into a deep lush green weed bed tend to produce many large pike this time of year

When asked by a guest what lure to use I often answered anything a bass will eat a pike will eat better and so goes for top water. Experiencing the huge wake following your lure as it sputters across the surface, an explosive hit and not only is the fish hooked but so are you. A top water pattern fished in the proper conditions will produce monsters when nothing else will.

To fish top water properly you will need a med-heavy rod that will allow for the aggressive action need to produce a quick movement of the lure across the surface.

Post spawn and summer patterns are prime times to fish top water baits. During mid to late post spawn many pike are starting to replenish there body reserves are found laying in the sallow warm water of organic rich bays. Most times these pike have their stomachs full and are soaking up the suns rays and digesting their last meal. A top water lure buzzed over calm water can cause inactive pike to respond with an aggression strike. Zara spooks, Jitter bugs, woodchoppers and buzz baits are a few of my personal favorites.

Summer patterns will find many large pike submerged in deep wed beds and this is a perfect opportunity to work the top and turn on some of these inactive residents. A reef hawg, suick, bobbie bait or anything with props will awaken the pikes primal instinct causing it to attack.

Adding a collection of top water lures to your pike arsenal, will often give you that needed edge needed to cover all bases and boat more pike.

In the past 10 years plastics have been developed into nearly any shape, form or color imaginable.

I will segment plastics into two categories; the first being plastic developed for vertical jigging and plastics designed to be fished as a crank bait (bull dawg, spring dawg, storm plastic crank baits, shads, creatures and slugo are a few of my favorite plastics) Both types work well in all seasons and patterns.

Plastic crank baits are casting within inches of the weed growth of the shoreline and slowly retrieving it will trigger most post spawn pike into striking. By hooking plastics differently you will get a varied action as it is retrieved, experiment until you find a color and action that work and work it.

Working a jig tipped with rubber deep into a summer pattern weed bed or casting a bull dawg along the edge of a reef is an ideal way to catch summer pattern monsters.

Vertical jigging over feeding flats will produce quality catches of northern pike after the ice has cover the lakes.

Plastics work winter summer spring or fall, add a collection to your tackle and you will add more pictures of trophy fish to your album.

During early post spawn when pike are in the dead weeds near shore or mid to late post spawn when many pike are starting to replenish there body reserves are found laying in the sallow warm water of organic rich bays laying belly’s on the bottom and nothing you can throw at them is workings its time to try a jig and pig.

Fished on a flipping rod the jig and pig will go it area no other lure can. Cast into the thickest cover and retrieved with a jigging motion or planted and twitched in front of a monster laying on a mud flat a jig and pig will boat many inactive fish.

By trimming about sixty percent of the weed guard on commercial jigs you will find that you will hook more fish.

If you plan to fish post spawn pike, take a collection of jigs and a couple of jars of pork and be prepared if action slows.

Fifteen years ago I was working at Minor Bay Camps as a guide when the owner Gerald Howard told me he had a guy who was coming from the United Kingdom to fish pike with the fly rod and wanted me to guide him. I responded, “as long as I could bring my bait cast to catch shore lunch, no problem”. Two weeks later I was introduced to Martin James The BBC host of a program the waters edge. I was very nervous, taking a fly fisherman after pike was unheard of back then and I had a reputation to uphold. I spoke to Martin and found out he had landed many pike in Europe over 20 pounds and I decided to take him an area I new had a lot of pike but most were under 40 inches. One hundred and forty six cast later Martin James had one hundred and forty six pike in the boat. My fingers were bleeding and I had some serious egg on my face thinking that pike wont bites a fly.

Marten James boated 21 fish over 40 inches in the 3 days we fished together and 50 over 40 the following year all on the fly.

As the years passed I started fly fishing more and more as I found the fly was something small enough that even a lure wise pike would always inhale it.

I have found that a nine or ten weight rod is needed to horse the big mamas out of heavy cover and a floating line with a 30 pound mono shock absorber attached to a eight foot 20 pound mono leader and a coated 12 inch steel or titanium leader hooked a bunny leach, minnow imitation like a deceiver or a top water like a Dahlberg Diver have boated me hundreds of post spawn trophies.

Summer patters utilizes the same type of fly’s and equipment but may require sinking line in deeper water to get the fly down to the fish.

When warm weather condition of the summer pattern or cooling water of the fall pattern cause pike to move out of areas where populations were concentrated in a small area and fishing become difficult, trolling a variety of lures will produce numbers of quality pike.

Concentrate effort to areas along drop offs, deeper channels between two bodies of water or large flats from ten to 20 feet.

Some of my favorite lures to troll are; cisco kids, jakes and grammas, stick baits like rappels and husky jerks, shad raps, mans one, five and ten minus lure. I experiment with color size and speed until I discover a pattern that works.

When trolling and choosing a bait I ill often hold the bait to the sky and find a color that stand out and does not blend in with clouds or clear sky that day.

Trolling will pick up many inactive and lure wise pike. Many time I have had a monster follow up and then disappear as soon as it sees the boat, buy leaving the area and returning an hour later and trolling the area, I have managed to hook up many wise old fish that would have been previously missed.

Add a collection of trolling lures to you kit and be ready for every condition monster pike offer you.