I know every week I say that this is my favorite outdoor event or this is my favorite fish to catch, but I do love fishing for northern pike. What’s not fun about them? They’re aggressive and fight like crazy. Nearly every trip one will follow your lure to the boat and lay in wait until your next cast. When the lure is about 6-inches from the end of your rod tip, they’ll strike and scare the heck out of you.
Being from down south, I’d never caught one until I moved to Nebraska after school. I met my girlfriend (wife) there and we hit them hard. Her family went to Canada every summer so she’d caught a ton of them.
I know Minnesota is said to have good northern fishing, but I think Nebraska is as good as you can ask for this side of Canada. Of course I’m not going to tell exactly where I caught all of my northerns but will tell you some of my methods. Then it will be up to you to find some spots.
I’ve caught them in lakes, rivers and behind dams. To some degree it’s almost like fishing for bass. In fact, we’ll catch bass a lot of times when northern fishing. But in Canada, with a boatload of kids in tow, my father-in-law made all of them troll. That saved from having a boatload of hooked kids.
He used big Cisco Kids. The first yea after Katy and I got married, we went up there and caught a lot of fish trolling. So trolling works, but my favorite method is casting. There are some all-time favorites that we’ll cover, but here’s something that I’ve noticed before we get into that. One year an orange Countdown Rapala may be my go-to lure. Then the next, it’s a yellow Hot’n Tot. I don’t know if you clean all the ones in the gene pool out that hit that color/lure combination or they just get smart, but my favorite lure seems to change every year.
With that said, however, my all-time favorite is a red and white Dardevle. A few other lures that I really like are Orange Rapala Countdowns, Hot’n Tots, Pig and Jigs and white spinner baits.
In 1987, as Calamus was filling, we’d go hit it every other day. The water was rising and would be in new grass all the time. We’d wade out chest deep and throw right to the edge of the grass with weedless barbed red and white Dardevles. We’d hold our rods up over our heads to keep from hanging up and we smoked ’em. Reeling fast in the shallow water you’d miss a lot of fish so we may be working three fish in the same footsteps.
I’d have a hit, throw to the right and then the left and then come back. I discovered that if I’d slap on a white spinner bait and cast it right after a miss that they’d hit it every time.
The absolute most fun is when the water is smooth as glass in the evening and they’re hitting buzzbaits. One afternoon I took a buddy. All he’d ever fished for is trout with spinner baits. We’d driven half the night and fished 12 hours, and he suggested we go set up camp and whip out dinner.
I tied on a white buzzbait as we were passing a 40-yard weed bed. He laughed at it and said what in the heck is that thing? I netted three fish before we passed the weed bed. Suddenly he said, “Give me one of those things.”
The next three hours we tore them up. It was a perfect night. The water was as still as glass. We were in my 12-foot jon boat with my Minn Kota and the battery died so I paddled us around while he smoked ’em. Finally he looked around and said, “Tom, I’m a computer nerd. I sit at a desk all day. If you want to fish go ahead but I’m fried. I can’t reel in another fish.” Wow, it’d been a perfect day. How many had we netted? It had to have been well over 100.
Oh, but before we close, what about one other favorite? Rattlin’ Traps. I love a Chrome Blue back Rattlin’ Trap. We’ll use them until the paint is knocked off. Mike had one with the hooks straightened out and hardly any paint left on it. He retired it and hung it on his computer.
A trip or two later, I had one with hardly any paint left and thought I’d retire it. Oh no, I didn’t have any more Rattlin’ Traps in my tackle box. I caught a few more and then one snapped me off. Oh no, I knew I should of retired it. No worries. Fifteen minutes later I caught the same fish and got my lure back. This time I retired it.
It’s smart to use steel leaders, but you catch a lot more fish if you don’t. You lose some lures but just re-tie every few fish.