Received an invite to join Kevin AKA “Fishing 24/7” on a small private lake in Quebec. I rarely fish in Quebec as I have just too many options on my side of the river but since seeing Kevin’s passion for fishing I just I had to fish with him one day. Finally got our schedules in order and made it out yesterday.
Large Pike were on the docket. I armed us with dead suckers and shiners in the 6 to 9 inch range. Kevin put us on the spot. You know you are in the right area when you are pulling this up when jigging!
We were setup in various depths from 8 to 18 FOW. Being in Quebec, the law allows for 5 lines to be used on ice. I went with 4 tipdowns and 1 jigging stick for the always present smallmouth bass that are in season in Quebec.
The first Pike was interesting. Kevin had a line way far away from us and I saw it tip down, he checked it to find nothing home. He yelled there was a second hole nearby if I wanted to move a line there, so I did. As I dropped it, my 8 inch sucker got attacked!
Nice, Clean and Fat!
While Kevin had never used a Vexilar before today he became a believer inside of 15 minutes. While he was jigging up smallie after smallie he felt something that had a bit more weight to it.
After getting bored of picking on the smallies I went for a walk to check on all the pike baits. I do this fairly often as I think pike sit and stare at hanging baits alot and if ya give em a bump they will jump on it. I pulled up the one line which was set in 18 FOW and on its way back down to the depths I felt a solid thud. I let the line go and as it tightened up the rod tipped down. Game on!
Here’s the fun part. I’ve never had this happen before, the fish got the second hook of the quick strike rig hung in its back in the last thrash at the hole so it would come to the hole sideways. We had to shut the video off to get it out. Kevin slid his arm down and was able to angle the fish enough to get his head up the hole and I gilled it to get it out of the hole. Great teamwork on this one! Had I been alone I likely would have had to just try to pull one of the hooks free which would have been tough.
You can see in this picture how it was hung up.
It was another good one too!
And of course.
Despite the leg burning conditions with 6 to 8 inches of slush and snow to trek through it was a great day on the ice with a newly made fishing buddy!
