great day fishing, targeting pike

Picked up some huge minnows last night,,,fished from 7am today till 5pm. I dont usually target pike but this is my favorite time of year to fish the river by my house. I have fished the same spot for thirty eight years and I mean the same spot, a twenty foot long area on the shore. Today was great lots of small ones that will grow bigger for next year and so on. A couple of big ones as well...21 in total. I do not keep any It is just nice to still be fishing. Stay safe everyone water is cold. Here is a couple pictures. My friend caught some as well. Great day.

Small pike

Bigger pike

Sounds like quite a good mess of fish today. I would have taken the boat for one last run for the season today, but didn't feel like arguing with the wind!

oh yes big wind today...sun burn and wind burn. I do not fish a whole lot during the day...just spring and fall. The wind helps cast the big minnows out gently.

21 in total... Man, you are fishing machine

Well most of them are small, 18 to 22 or 23 inches. Lots of big ones as well but that is a 4 small to 1 big ratio usually. It is just the totals you continually get there year after year. I walk the shore 20 feet back and forth cast up and down stream and straight out. There is like a trench out there about seven feet deep that is the perfect definition of the old phrase...fishing whole...filled with pike. There is perch and small mouth and crappie as well but very rare. Just a great place just to catch and release pike forever I hope.

Wow, that's for sure a great day of fishing!

21 pikes in one spot is a lot but that does not surprises me at all. I have also experienced catching numerous pikes in a fairly small spot and not only in the fall. Many people think that pike is territorial and solitary all the time but often times they can bunch together in a good area with good cover and food supply and can peacefully coexist for quite a while with each other.

I remember a few ago my buddy and I caught about 10 pikes at Balsam in May in a weedbed sized about 10 x 10 feet. If you cast 3-4 feet away from this spot you get nothing.

This part of the river has been like this for decades. The trench does run right up the river about half a mile. My friend has gone out in a boat but from shore it is all trees with only a couple spots where there is enough room to cast. So overtime the piked have thrived because not many people know they are there, and most of us catch and release, There are a few people who take some but I guess that is okay to thin them out a bit. Hopefully that is the way it stays, there is many people now taking too many fish from all over, many different species, not caring about the future. VERY SAD.