Closing Time

Pike season is quickly coming to a close in Zone 20 on the 31st of March and I want to get in as much time on the

water as possible. I decided to head out today and try a different spot as my normal honey hole has not produced of late. This is probably due to the tremendous amounts of rain we have received in the last couple of weeks.

This new spot looked very promising as it has lots of rocks among some
shallow areas which look great for the upcoming spawn. There are also
some emerging weeds that are visible.

With the full moon coming up in a couple of days I thought today might
present some better odds as the moon was at 95% (Waxing Gibbous). As
all avid anglers know, the window surrounding the full moon can
present a great time to be on the water fishing.

I started throwing a Rapala HJ-12 in the Firetiger color and after
about an hour with absolutely nothing to show for, I decided to change
lures. At this point I cut my line and tied on a Suspending Rattling
Wobbler in a Yellow/Pearl Ayu color. This lure is made by Fish Master
Lures, http://www.fishmasterlures.net After tying it on and making my
very first cast, I started my retrieve using various jerks followed by
long pauses. I immediately hooked into a small pike that was brought
in rather quickly due to its small size. It was a 21" pike that
probably weighed around 2 lbs. Hard to imagine that I would hook into
a pike on my very first cast after making a lure change but it does
happen. There are a few things that I like better about the SRW over the Rapala HJ. Firstly, it has more weight to it so it

suspends deeper in the water column. Secondly, it makes more noise due to the multiple tungsten rattle weights inside the
chamber, thus attracting fish better. Finally, I just love the
Gamakatsu Blood-Red treble hooks. Overall this lure is awesome.

Although it was a pretty cold day on the water I still managed to
catch one pike in a little over an hour, and while 21" may be
considered small for a pike, I thought I would put it into perspective
for myself. This is the same size as the smallmouth bass I caught this
summer on Rice Lake. If these two fish were next to one another, they
would have had the identical length and one would have dwarfed the
other. It was now that I realized just how big that smallie was
because I had something I could actually compare it to.