Today I’m happy to offer a guest post about chasing, along with some how to’s, about fishing for large northern pike and muskies.  This post is by John Olson who has a new blog about bow hunting,[Bow Hunter Guides].  John is an avid fisherman and bow hunter and his blog features reviews of high end, [bow hunting equipment] and tips and techniques to harvest a big buck.  Down here the closest thing we have to northern pike are chain pickerel, good table fare, but really bony and most we catch are thrown back.  Enjoy this post, I did!

More than any other fish in the state of Minnesota, the walleye is chased, studied and fished for, but while a very good tasting fish and a challenge to catch, many anglers are missing the joy of chasing down large northern pike in the many lakes of the state.  Large northern pike, or “gators”, named for their impressive display of teeth, are a unique challenge to fish for and can offer the opportunity to catch a fish of a lifetime.  Many pike grow in excess of forty inches and can weight twenty pounds, or more!  They are tremendous fighters and, on the end of the line, will give any angler more than they can handle.  Unlike their close cousin the muskie, northern pike are more aggressive and easier to catch.

The best time of year to chase big gators is in the mid to late fall when the trees are in color.  Smaller fish slow down this time of year and the big ones are in a feeding frenzy.  The fish are fattening up for winter and know that the ice will soon cover the lake limiting oxygen making food sources harder to acquire.  Fish this time of year are extremely aggressive and are fairly easy to trigger a strike.  Here are some keys to fishing pike in Minnesota during the fall season.

1.  Big lake equals big fish.  You can catch large pike in many northern lakes in Minnesota, however, if you are going to consistently catch big fish, you need to go to larger bodies of water that have huge food sources.  Some prime suspects include Lake Mille Lacs, Lake Vermillion, Lake of the Woods and Leech Lake.  You can find big pike in many other lakes but these lakes consistently produce large fish.

2.  Shallow bays with weed lines that break to deep water.  My personal favorite is to find bays in these large bodies of water with well-developed weed lines that break sharply toward deep water.  The weeds are dying this time of year and the fish move out of them.  These voracious eaters sit on break line feasting on baitfish.  They have multiple ways to attack baitfish from these situations including, coming from the deep like a lightning bolt, or sitting in the edge of the weeds to pounce on fish that do not see them.

3  .Sunny days fish top water lures.  These pike will sun themselves in bays and top water lures are the ticket to get a big fish to strike.  Personally, I like jerk baits on the surface retrieved at a very fast rate.  There is nothing more exciting that seeing a big gator pounce on your top water lure then watching it disappear.  Sometime, if you are lucky, they will come completely out of the water, creating an awesome spectacle!  A side benefit is that these lakes also produce record class muskie and this technique is effective for those fish as well.

4.  Cloudy days fish deepwater breaks with crank baits and spinners.  Cloudy days usually produce more fish than sunny days and deep water cranks and spinners will produce some big fish.  The pike often will sit deep and strike any baitfish that comes out of the weeds.  I like to throw big rattling cranks parallel along the weed then retrieve with a stop and go pattern.  Rapalla X-raps work great in these situations since they mimic a wounded fish.

So, this fall if you want to enjoy a great weekend of fishing, grab your tackle box and heavy equipment, then go chase down some big pike.  These exciting fish are fun to catch and, when on the end of your line, will get your heart to racing!

During the summer of 1987 we could plan an offshore trip a week ahead and the weather would cooperate, beautiful weather!  Based on this, Bob Baugh and I had planned a trip a week ahead and, sure enough, in his boat, the “Bill Collector”, we were tied up to a rig, sixty miles out of Freeport, Texas.  The rig was anchored on the bottom in one hundred ten feet of water.

Checking for baitfish, we cruised around the rig and noticed, not five feet under the surface, some small amberjack, so I cast out a cigar minnow and from the depths, a bigger amberjack quickly darted in and gobbled the bait, and the fight was on.  Finally subduing the fish, we netted and released it, a 20 pounder.

After we tied up to the rig, we really got a workout from several sixty to eighty-pound amberjacks, members of the tuna family, and pound for pound, they are the hardest fighting fish in the Gulf.  We were using eighty-pound class tackle and after each bout with a big ‘jack we’d take a five or ten minute break.

Having recently bought a new, medium weight, rod that I’d been wanting to try out, during one of these breaks, I got it out.  Earlier, to it, I’d added a wide spool, red reel, wrapped with twenty, pound line and on the end of the line was a wire leader and hook, to which I added a cigar minnow.  Casting the minnow out, it would drift with the current and maybe a whopper would attack it?  We also noticed a squall line looming to our east, but didn’t worry about it since NOAA was predicting calm, storm free, weather.

For every five big, amberjack we hooked, we may have landed one.  If, they got their head pointing down, you were done for and he’d cut you off in the rig.  After loosing another one, I was re-rigging and I happened to look up and noticed the squall line was getting closer.  “Bob, should we worry about the weather?” I asked.  He replied, “Naw, doesn’t look like a problem.”  Later, we laughed over his reply.

Just then, my new rod bent nearly double and the line was peeling off at a rapid rate.  Bob said, “I told you that new rod was too light for these big fish out here!”  Setting the hook, the big, bull dolphin (dorado) cleared the water by about ten feet then took off in passing gear!

While running away from the boat the dolphin jumped three times, each jump displaying the fish’s bright coloration, green, blue, gold against the approaching dark blue squall line.  If I was an artist, it would have made a beautiful picture, but Captain Bly (Bob) spoiled it saying, “We better git, that storm looks like a good one!”

What a fight this bruiser put on!

Horsing in the fish wasn’t an option because I would get him near the boat and jump, jump, run!  We finally got him subdued and into the boat, then the wind changed from south and hot to northeast and cool.  Thinking, Oh, oh, I’ve been down this road before, we quickly whacked the fish on the head, put him in the big cooler, un-looped the rope from the rig and backed away.

Then Bob did something funny, reaching into the boat storage area, he got out a motorcycle helmet and slipped it on.  Back then, before laser surgery, he wore very heavy, thick glasses and he used the helmet and visor to keep the rain off.  He wiped the clear visor with a towel and told me, “We’re going to get wet, so hold on tight!”

We headed directly into the storm and broached each wave crest, probably eight footers, the rain, worse than when I was caught in a severe storm in 1982, and like then, this storm was between us, and the shore.  Wind was about forty, no lightning, but the rain almost obscured the bow of the boat, ten feet in front of us.

All we could do was trust the LORAN, this was before GPS, and keep going for almost sixty miles. The easy hour run took us two and a half hours.  The last twenty miles were in relative calm seas and the last five miles were spent in a race with a twenty-four foot outboard powered, sleek looking boat.  Winning the race, our speed showing on the LORAN was fifty-two!  The big dolphin weighed thirty-one pounds, but NOAA never said anything about the storm that never was.

After I had completed 6 weeks of ROTC Summer Camp, my mom and dad picked me up at Ft Hood, Texas and we headed off to Boulder, Colorado to visit my aunt and uncle, Cordie and George Howard, and their son, Milton.  Milton had just finished his military obligation with the Army in Europe and it had been 9 years since we had visited them.  At the time Boulder was not surrounded by Denver, but was a pleasant college town, later I found out just how liberal it was back then!

As soon as we arrived, Milton told us he had a big fishing trip planned – rainbow and brown trout in Big Thompson Canyon.  Dad and I, being “flatlanders” couldn’t imagine why we had to go to a canyon to catch fish, but “when in Rome, etc”.

Up early the next morning we drove north up into the foothills and soon parked beside a railroad tunnel.  Where’s the canyon?  Why this tunnel?  We’d find out soon enough!

Trekking through the tunnel, Moffatt Tunnel, it seems to be at least a mile long, through solid rock and every two to three hundred yards there was a cutout in the side, where, I hoped, we could get to before a train came through.  I’m sure Milton planned the trip so a train would come roaring through while we were trapped in the tunnel.  One did, of course, and we made it to the cutout in plenty of time.

We also found out why Milton told us, “Don’t forget your flashlights!”  After we rounded a long curve, it was pitch dark in the tunnel!  Once through, we walked for almost a half mile and could hear water flowing and saw a steep canyon wall on our left.  Trying not to stumble and tumble down the slope, we went slipping and sliding, balancing our rods and lunches, until we reached the floor of the canyon and were greeted by the Big Thompson River flowing east toward its rendezvous with the Platte.  We had “enjoyed” almost an hour of walking time from our car, through the tunnel and down the canyon wall.

As we tied on our small spinners, Milton commented, “Be alert for quicksand.  There’s some scattered along the edges of the river.  If you step in it, don’t fight it and I will come and pull you out.”  Why did he wait until we were in the water to tell us about quicksand?  Of course, when I was wading along, one step and the bottom disappeared.  I had found the quicksand, but was quickly retrieved and went back to fishing.

Milton is sitting on the rock, while I fish, in Big Thompson Canyon, near Boulder Colorado.

I had one fish on and two more real nice strikes, including at least a twenty, inch rainbow that was on for several jumps and rolls, but when I reached down to grab hold, it got away!  Milton and my dad had the same results, no fish, but lots of fun.

We fished until the sun was past the canyon walls then started our trek back.  When we got back to the car it was completely dark inside and outside the tunnel, but what an unusual and exciting experience we had just completed, quicksand included!

In July of 1981, Dewey Stringer and I, along with one of his good customers, had a big offshore trip lined up. We had heard that some big kingfish were hanging around the rigs in the Buccaneer Field, thirty miles south of Galveston. Dewey’s customer had never been offshore fishing before, but he had been insistent and even though he was a “pilgrim”, we thought we could handle whatever came up.

Way before the sun, we gassed up Dewey’s twenty-three foot boat, pushed by a two hundred horse, outboard, filled both of the big coolers with ice, bought some cigar minnows for bait and cleared the marina. We headed out through the Houston Ship Channel, turned south at the end of the jetty and before long could see the lights of the twelve mile rig. Not stopping there we sped on past and just as the sun was peeking over the horizon, we tied up to a rig in the Buccaneers.

A little history on the Buccaneer Oil Field, at the edge of the continental shelf, it was drilled in the 1960’s at a water depth of seventy feet. The relatively shallow wells produced mostly oil at the start, but now production is primarily natural gas. In 1983 the name of the field was changed to the Blue Dolphin Oil And Gas Field and, although still producing, it was included in the Texas Parks and Wildlife Reef Program.

The sea was slick as we baited up, cast out and started a chum line, whereupon, one glance at the chum, a mixture of cut up trash fish, fish guts and other nauseous items, Dewey’s customer ran to the side of the boat and threw up. Senior Mal-De-Mere reared his head! All we could do was have him stand up and concentrate on a spot on the horizon, sometimes this will settle things out, but this time it didn’t work and the disease was catching as I started feeling bilious, however locking my vision on a far away rig, mine passed.

The customer quickly recovered as a big king hit one of the baits and took off on a sizzling run, another shorter run, then a splashing fight around the boat, before Dewey gaffed it and tossed the twenty-five pounder into the cooler. For this trip we were using light to medium offshore tackle with twenty, pound line and a three, foot wire leader because most of these fish out here have plenty of teeth!

We caught several more kings, the customer got his second wind, but as the morning progressed, with the glare off the water, it started getting hot, really hot and by noon we were all ready to call it quits. Then, the radio crackled with a severe storm warning from NOAA, “A severe storm with high winds, heavy rain and lightning is moving east along the Freeport beachfront and is expected to reach the Galveston beach’s by 2:00 PM. All interested parties should seek shelter. This is a fast moving, dangerous storm.”

Looking northwest we could see a thin, black line along the horizon and as I untied us from the rig, Dewey started the outboard and told his customer to find a seat and hold on, then he muttered, “Were going to beat this thing to Galveston!” Our calculations were that if we could make thirty-five, we could beat the storm in by thirty minutes. However our “calcs” were wrong because we underestimated the storm’s size and speed!

Heading north at forty, thank goodness the seas were almost slick, but we could see the storm growing to our northwest. One option was tying up to the twelve, mile rig, letting a lot of line out and ride it out. As the storm approached us, we were all wondering why we didn’t just stay at the Buccaneers?

The back edge of the storm hit us before we got to the twelve, mile rig making it impossible to tie up to it. In an instant the wind went from five to fifty, the temperature dropped at least twenty degrees and the rain came in almost parallel to the sea. Then crack, boom, lightning hit the rig and it was popping all around us, who knows why we didn’t get hit? The wind was so strong, that for now, it was flattening the seas, so we sped on.

Almost as fast as the storm came upon us, the seas became rough, six to eight, foot waves that slowed us down considerably, that, on top of the wind from the northwest making it hard to hold the boat on course. It was getting scary and thinking to myself, If we don’t hit the jetties, we’ll probably end up either on the Bolivar Peninsula or the Louisiana coast!

Shouting over the storm Dewey asked us, “What’s that up ahead?” Both looking ahead we saw a boat coming toward us, closer inspection showed a Coastguard Zodiac, with two sailors aboard, bouncing up and over the waves. With a hailer they called us, “Did this boat request assistance?” Since we couldn’t be heard over the storm, we shook our heads no. Then they asked a funny question, “Which way to the beach?” we pointed north, then their radio crackled, oblivious to the storm they turned around and bounced back toward the beach. Someone else must have been in trouble.

The storm was intense and we made out in the distance what we hoped was the old, unused lighthouse at the end of the South Jetty. Other than the Coastguard, we had seen no other boats, so we plowed on. Nearing the jetty, on the Gulf side we saw a capsized boat and as we drew nearer, three men were clinging to the side.

One man was waving, trying to get our attention, we saw him, but the up and down of the eight foot seas made maneuvering over to them very difficult. Finally we pulled up on the downwind side of them, the motor keeping us steady and two of the three men, one a Latin with his valuables clutched tightly in a plastic bag, were ready to come aboard. Dewey shouting, ordered them aboard, but one of the men was hesitant saying, “I’m staying with my boat!” this drew a heated response from Dewey, who yelled, “Get aboard or stay out here and drown you Son-Of-A-Bitch!” We started to pull away, but the man in the water said, “But my fishing tackle!”

Both of our internal alarms went off because his tackle was long gone, but I told Dewey, “I’m sure he was worried about something else,” as I edged closer to the Billy club, or fish persuader, we kept stowed under the gunnel. Three against three, they didn’t appear to be armed, so we put them in the front of the boat, but the last man in was a hard case shrugging our attempts to help him, then we up and downed around the end of the jetty, finally getting into calmer water.

As Dewey called the Coastguard to let them know we had retrieved three men from a swamped boat, he mentioned that they didn’t look like fisherman. Our guests were surly at best so I stayed close to the Billy club. As we pulled into the Galveston Yacht Basin, the Coastguard was waiting for us and they arrested the three men!

The “fishing tackle” was a couple of bales of cocaine and the Latin was being smuggled into our Country. The two men had gone out to a shrimp boat, picked up the dope and the illegal and, unlucky for them, got swamped by the storm. Lucky for them we insisted for them to come aboard!

This was a violent, killer storm and we had traveled right through the center of it. As the storm plowed through the beachfront and Galveston Bay, many boats were capsized and sunk, however it was a miracle that only three people, in a sailboat, were killed. For a while, that was enough storm for me!

Dewey’s customer never asked to go fishing with him again.

Our computer services company was still growing and our business prospects looked good, so early in the summer of 1998, Bob Baugh and I decided to take a day off and go fish for tarpon. Over the past few years the tarpon had moved back to the beachfront in sufficient numbers that several fishing guides had started a fishery for tarpon, kingfish, jack fish and shark. To protect their newfound livelihood, they used medium to light tackle and vigorously practiced catch and release of tarpon.

We decided to get a guide and we chose Mike Williams, owner of Tarpon Express, considered to be the best saltwater guide in the Galveston area. Never having used a local guide before, we knew he’d know about catching tarpon, where they were and most important, he was on the water chasing them every.

We met him in Galveston, at the gas station, at the corner of 69th Street and Seawall Blvd., followed him down the sixteen, miles of beachfront to San Luis Pass and launched his twenty-three footer, powered by a two hundred horse outboard. He had already picked up a supply of frozen cigar minnows that we would be using for bait. He had made the decision for us not to use artificial bait since he said the tarpon were really spread out and hadn’t been hitting artificials for the past week. That’s another reason why we hired him!

The morning was picture perfect, light southeast wind, tide rolling in bringing in the clear green Gulf water as we loaded up in the boat and motored under the San Luis Pass Bridge. Two hundred yards past the last sand bar simultaneously, Mike, Bob and I, spotted a circular slick about the size of a washtub. This usually means trout. Trout voraciously feed and while feeding, regurgitate their stomach contents and continue feeding, the slick being made by these contents floating to the surface.

Mike cut the boat back to neutral and since I was already baited up, told me, “Jon, cast right into that slick.” Casting into the slick I was rewarded by a solid strike, the fish took my bait my, but no hook up and no fish. Quickly baiting back up and casting back into the slick, this time a big fish hit my bait, headed east down the beachfront, pausing only to clear the water and expose its silver, green sides – a big tarpon!

Wow, my first real opportunity to land a big, tarpon. Having the utmost confidence in the fishing tackle, a seven foot, medium action, fiberglass rod Bob had made for me several years before, with an eighty pound, monofilament leader and twenty pound line wrapped onto a saltwater size, red reel,

The fish continued to run, then stopped, cleared the water again and just like the outdoor writers say, to create a small bit of slack in my line that acts as a cushion, I dropped my rod tip as the tarpon entered back into the water. Now, as he ran right back toward us, to keep the line tight, I reeled furiously. Another jump, another lowered rod tip, another long run, then I started to gain line as it wallowed on the surface, then Mike put a hand gaff right in the point of the tarpon’s lower jaw and I had my trophy!

Since this was only catch and release, we measured the tarpon as best we could, Bob took pictures of the fish in the water (he can’t find the picture now) and we released it to fight another day. We estimated it was sixty inches long and weighed eighty pounds! I took the measurements to a taxidermist and had a shoulder mount made up of the fish coming out of the water. The mount was displayed in my office for many years and now, Bob has it.

We continued fishing that day, caught two kingfish, a five foot, black tip shark and lost several fish when they bit through the mono leaders. We did not see or connect with another tarpon. One good thing, as we were fishing, Mike cleaned the fish, so at the end of the day, we plopped them into the cooler and headed home. Another reason why we hired him!