Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Pike Eating A Perch

Strange how they get stymied at the Canadian border, eh?

I would really like to try spearing them
Here is Saginaw Bay they do it through the ice
Very close to me but I have not personally done it

Hank

I haven't done that in 15-20 years but it is legal here and a real hoot too.

I love spearing pike.

Did quite a bit of dark house spearing when young until the state started putting musky s in so many lakes and shut it down.

Osky

Turdeau’s fault I suppose. 😉

ironbender;
Good morning my friend, I hope you and your fine family are well and rested after the weekend.

With the understanding that if at all possible I would also assign that to PM Socks, I'm not sure that the evidence supports that particular thesis.

Since it's me and all, I'll share a couple quick "Jackfish" stories from my Saskatchewan youth.

When I was about 12, I was splitting firewood at the firepit on shore in front of the dock of our church camp which was on Greenwater Lake, SK.

Presently a boat was heading directly to our shore, a driver heading in at fair speed and another chap fishing whose rod was mightily bent over. As the boat contacted the beach, the fisherman leapt out and dragged to shore the biggest, meanest pike I'd seen to date and since. It looked huge ironbender and was obviously unhappy about being caught.

Buddy shouted asking me something like, "Hey do you have anything to knock this jackfish on the head with kid?" and I handed him the axe, which he took with thanks, spun it around to use the poll and proceeded to give the fish at least two and perhaps three solid whacks on the top of it's head.

After we saw it was dead, he said they didn't have a net big enough to hold it, thus the run for the shore.

I want to say they did weigh it and it was just a tad over 18lb but I can't recall if they measured it, likely not as that might not have been a thing in the early '70's.

Second tale with jackfish goes like this.

We'd gone under farming and I was working for a local cabinetmaker as we planned our move out west to BC.

In what would become a foreshadowing of things to come in my career with table saws, I managed to change the shape of my left thumb and despite a local small town doctor treating it, a few days on it began to stink so my wife took me to the closest hospital emergency since I wasn't going back to that doctor.

When I came out from there, a young RCMP Constable was talking to two somewhat disheveled looking fellows, all three who were opposite where my wife had been sitting waiting for me.

The details are somewhat lost in the fog of 40 years passing ironbender, but the tale my wife finally got out between bouts of laughter was more or less this.

The two fellows were out fishing in an aluminum boat and in true Saskatchewan fashion were also consuming much brewed barley product, being patriots and wanting to keep local farmers in business single handedly no doubt.

One of them caught a jackfish, which my wife understood to be "about this big" when the fellow held up his hands to the RCMP Constable, so perhaps 30" longish?

The fish wasn't happy being caught apparently - a trend we'll notice with them it seems - and as the barley infused fellow was trying to retrieve his lure, likely a Len Thompson spoon, as he called it, the "damned jackfish" latched onto him with grim determination.

His friend waded into the fray and somehow lost his balance, fell and struck his head on the boat, cutting it open reasonably well.

That meant it was left to only one of them to battle the pike, which bit him in a couple more spots before as he told the constable, "then the damned thing jumped out of the boat!"...

She still talks about that day ironbender.

Honestly though, how many times in one's life will one hear about a fish beating up two fishermen before returning itself into the Saskatchewan slough?

All the best.

Dwayne

PS;
She indicated that the RCMP Constable was there on some other business, knew at least one of the fishermen and the incident then wasn't an official police matter, even though violence had been committed.

She also indicated that the Constable was not able to contain his laughter, not even a wee bit.

Great stories again, Dwayne. Thanks!

The bit blaming the sparkle socks was TIC, as I’m certain you know. Any opportunity to mock that character.

I have never combined water/boats (or guns) with properly prepared grain products, back when I was imbibing. I don't have a lot of smarts, but I have that much. Not to mention I have done so bank fishing. That's different.

I can understand how it might be hard to make out which fish to grab when only one was on the hook ....

As Mike indicated, we have had pike introduced illegally or accidentally- probably the former - here on the KP. One such place that had (perhaps still does??) is Sevena lake, from which drains Soldotna Creek, into the Kenai River. Hence the salmon concerns. I'm not sure if they treated that lake, but they should have. When pike on the KP comes up, I always think of this incident. Close to me, Mackey Lakes are also float plane lakes that have or had 1-2 lb hammer-handles, mostly. But I was looking for bigger fish.

I was looking for access to Sevena Lake for pike fishing and followed the only narrow single-lane road to it- a couple miles long, that ended at a home site or homestead on the lake. A guy came boiling out and demanded what I was doing. I apologized, stating my intent, asking if I could put my canoe in there. He cooled down, and said I was welcome to go fishing any time. That 2 mile or so road was all his private drive, across wet muskeg mostly, put in by himself, at his own labor and expense. And yes, there is a "Private Drive" sign, and sometimes locked gate on it where it leaves public Robinson Loop.

I was subbing at the local schools, and one of the teen girls in a class some time later asked if her dad "had been mean" to me. I assured her he had not been. She then related that the fall before some bozo out moose hunting had parked his new F250 midway along the road, blocking it, locked, then gone hunting off-road, when her dad had to go to town. Or at least wanted to.

He backed all the way back up to his yard, climbed on the D8, cleared the road, and went to town.

BC30 that’s funny. My first year up there I was fishing out of Lake Aleknagik Ak. And before heading up I had a buddy tell me to watch out for the pike as the damn things will bite ya (he always had to make everything dramatic) After a couple of weeks I got a free evening and grabbed a couple of the dock boys and a boat and went pike fishing out in a small bay. We were fishing with top water plugs and wire leaders and the things were snapping about every cast but we weren’t hooking many. I finally waited for the tug and set the hook which got my first pike to the boat so I grabbed my camera and took a picture. The pike was laying on its side so I reached down to grab the steel leader to release the thing with pliers when the damn thing came out of the water bit my finger and as fast as it could happen it was laying on its side like nothing happened. Those things are fast and a lesson was learned as I never got left bleeding again.

My brother was playing a crappie lure at the side of the boat just to watch its action. A 10 pound or so pike made a rush at the lure, which startled the daylights out of my brother, so by reflex he jerked the lure out of the water before the pike could get it. I told him, "Be careful - you might catch something."

An ex-boss fileted a few pike and then started to clean up. To amuse his kid, he made a show of sticking his finger into a dead pike's mouth with predictable results. Yes sir, dead pike latched onto his finger with authority resulting in a lot of cursing and dancing, and a couple stitches at the doctor.

I've heard lots of stories about southern bass fisherman catching their first pike and thinking they can stick their thumb in it's mouth to lift it into the boat. hahaha

That’s funny Rooster. Hell I had been warned about it and still got bloody man them things are quick.

You mean you can’t lip a Pike? How about a Muskie?

It was many years before we ever got to a place with pike. But well before then we knew about them and how to deal with them.

It always blows me away how ignorant so many are on so many topics yet they are willing to blindly jump in and prove their low IQ.

The good thing about pike is it will usually only be a one of from what I've seen.

Yeah they are and the cuts they leave are like paper cuts on steroids. Sting like hell.

That's a lie. You can on both of them.

At least once.

Well, you can.

I just don't recommend it. lol