The best pike fishing I've experienced was free-lance fly-in fishing in my home province of Saskatchewan. We'd get there in the spring just after ice-out and troll through muskeg bays, usually with #2 Len Thompson five of diamonds spoons. You'd be hard pressed to get your partner to glance to the other side of the boat over a 15 pounder. My best was 31.5 pounds.
The shallow water fish were a lot of fun, taking long runs til you can see the bottom of a bait caster.Then you either stop them and work them back or just drive the boat over and get some line back on your reel. Although I have used lighter walleye grade tackle successfully it lead to too many fish being played past exhaustion. When you kill one of those big girls you will feel like you ran over a deer.
The biggest pike tended to come in like they were a dead log until they see the boat. Occasionally you could net them at that point if you were quick about it, but you're unlikely to do that more than once. More normally the fish would spook and head for the horizon and it would be zinnnnnnnnnng, pause, zinnnnng pause, zing "start the boat". The little guys like 10 and 15s are actually more fun in some ways but they just don't have the broad backed, draft horse style straight line pulling power.
Did I mention I like pike? my friends were mostly there for the lakers.
