Your favorite niece’s wedding put the kibosh on your annual June fishing trip, so you now find yourself on your favorite Canadian lake in mid-July. You’ve checked all your usual spots, and find them lacking in fish. The weed beds they talked about aren’t up yet. What to do?
In Canadian Shield lakes, shallow-water, reed-loving pikes are actually in the rocks. You need to change your fishing strategy; first to find them, then to catch them. Areas you want to target are wind-blown, rocky shorelines and points in the main lake. The fish are actually very aggressive and you want to use lures that can cover a great deal of water quickly. Tackle such as in-line spinners, traditional spoons, and crank baits will put you onto the fish. Another key component to this strategy is to cover lots of water. The fish can be either on the first drop off right off shore, or on feeding flats. Look for rocks instead of flat granite slabs. Don’t ignore sand bars. What you want is shallow feeding areas adjacent to deep water. The Pike will spend most of their time in deeper water, but will come up to feed.
The best set up for this “cast and blast” is your standard bass fishing tackle. Spinning or bait casting rods rigged with 12-17 lb test line work the best. You will want something that makes it easy to cast lures from ½ to 1 oz. Utilizing this type of strategy, it is difficult to target strictly trophy fish. You have to go through lots of little ones to get to the big ones. Catches between 100-200 pike per boat are not uncommon.
So for those of you that are accustomed to the “tried and true” June pike fishing, you’ll have to adjust your fishing strategy to enjoy the Pike in July. Once you fish in July you may just keep coming up then. You will notice the weather is warmer and more stable, the Pike fight harder, and you will have less anglers on the lake. You may be able to get a lower rate from your lodge owner as well. If you’re fishing with less experienced anglers, July is a good time to introduce them to fishing in the Canadian north.
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Great article Lee!
ReplyDeleteWhen do the reeds typically come up and do you have many anglers that are at your lodge that time of year? Reed fishing is certainly great fun - especially when you can site fish them or catch them charging out for a buzz bait. For in-line spinners do you have a favorite you could recommend?
Our Reed fishing is a tranitional phase that starts around the end of June and runs for a few weeks. We concentrate on the deeper sides of the bays as the Pike start moving out to deeper water for their mid-summer pattern.
ReplyDeleteWe tend to get more families and young people this time of year. The weather is stable and warm and you get non-stop action!
Favorite baits would be the Blue Fox Vibrex in #5 or #6 either gold or Firetiger patterns. Rapala Husky Jerks, Spinner baits and Buzz Baits are all top producers.