I had two days in a row off this week, so I made a quick decision to book the last site on a portage or hike-in backcountry campsite. We hoped to catch crappie and pike. I have a lot to learn about crappie, but we picked up a few notes on pike. More like 27 notes!
We fished the 1st lake for a few hours, picking up a pair of small pike, 1 sunfish and 0 crappie. We're pretty small time when it comes to freshwater fishing, so we were already happy with that. Completed our first ever portage, crossed the 2nd lake and made camp. There was a good looking bay nearby, so we switched over to pike lures and headed out. We tried fishing our usually pattern, shallow and weedy. It has never yielded us any big pike, but we usually catch a few hammer handles. No luck. The wind pushed us out to deeper water and Laura hooked into a pike.
To us, a 3 pound pike is a "nice one" since we catch mostly hammer handles. So were were pleased after catching 3 of that size pike in under an hour. Then Laura hooked into one that took the canoe for a ride! After a few minutes of being towed around, she landed her PB pike by far!
I was in a bit of a slump on that lake, but was very pleased to watch her catch em up. I had opportunities, but often missed the hookset or had them follow right to the boat. One broke the surface in an attempt to grab my lure after I lifted it out of the water.
We enjoyed T-bones, veggie medley, baked cinnamon apples and of course, s'mores. I think I may have even improved upon my s'more technique last night. Wrapped the whole thing up in foil after roasting the mallow and tossed it back on the coals for a bit to melt the whole deal. Mmmmmmm....
We enjoyed the sounds of loons, great horned owls, barred owls, I'm pretty sure a couple of oldsquaw last night. This morning, Laura even heard a turkey gobble on the roost. Good thing I'm tagged out
We took it easy this morning and got on the water once the sun was high. All our (make that her) fish were caught in one area the night before, so we decided to check out the rest of the lake. We had run over a mid-lake weed shoal that looked promising and a passed some good bays the day before. It was a lot of drifting and not much catching. She released a couple more fish and by the time we were 3/4 around the lake, I was thinking I was cursed on this lake. Finally, a hammer handle broke the spell.
And that was all it took. After lunch, we headed to the "spot" to see if there might be any willing fish there or if the previous night was just perfect timing at sunset. I had my doubts, but was very wrong. Over the next 3 1/2 hours, we released 19 more pike, including a PB for me. Laura caught another big'un that trumped all of mine. Some of the other campers were cheering us on as we sometimes were releasing 3 per drift and even a doubleheader!
All in all, we caught 20 pike today, bringing the 2 day total to 27 pike!
On the paddle back in, we saw a slab crappie floating dead in the lake. I guess they are in there too, but we couldn't figure them out. I'm not too fussed though
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