November piking

At November I had few chances to go fishing. And I used those chances for Pike fishing.

At 5^th of the November I headed to my friends summer cottage to the eastern part of the Archipelago of Turku. For some reason these waters have always been quite challenging for me even though I’ve caught some nice sized Pike from there. Well, this time it was even more challenging. We fished from dawn till dusk about eight and half hours and I had not even single bite for sure. At least my friend managed to catch two Pike. That was not so good start for Pike season though there’s only one way from here. And it’s up…..

At the middle of the month I made my second hit after Pikes. Initially our primary meaning was try to search Shorthorn sculpins from the deep water. A night before we were looking at the weather forecasts and because of the hard southern wind we decided to concentrate purely for Pike. Afterwards thinking that was not a bad thing at all.

For some reason it didn't bother me at all that we missed this guys.

The day started pretty well and we caught a Pike every now and then. Pike were all quite small until Niko changed to a Storm WildEye Seeker Shad in a colour RHC. That’s one of the most lethal pike lures on the market (and that’s why I don’t like to use that). The first fish he caught with that lure was a nice Pike of 8,1 kilos and 104 centimeters. I was still fishing with jerkbaits and about half an hour later a really nice fish of over ten kilos rolled over by the boat after my jerk. Well, it missed my lure and we didn’t see that fish ever since.

Niko and 8,1kg.

Pike were on the bite and we caught them steadily. Again the fish were fairly smallish. The sun was already setting down when we arrived to our last spot of the day. I had just made a cast and said to Niko that it would be nice to catch even one Pike over five kilos today when it happened. It was just like earlier. A big Pike came and rolled over after my jerkbait. The only difference was that this time I barely managed to hook that fish. Niko scooped the fish up with a landing net and the hook slipped of immediately. It was a one huge fish. We weighed and measured the “old lady” and after few quick photo shot I gently released her back to the water. Few casts after we called that a day and what a day it was…

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention. My new PB Pike weighed 12,1 kilos and had a length of 118 centimeters. It was not a world’s biggest Pike but I’m pretty sure that I won’t catch a bigger one (probably) ever.

My new PB. 12,1kg and 118cm.

Four days later we were on the move again. This time I was with Jarno. The day started quite well again and Jarno caught a nice Pike of five kilos. Again we caught a Pike from here and another one from there. From one of our hot spots I hooked a bit better fish. It weighed 7,25 kilos, not a bad Pike at all.

The day is pretty short at November here in north and it felt that the time flew way too fast that day. Altogether we caught 23 Pike from which my seven kilo fish and Jarnos five, five and a half and six kilos Pikes were the biggest of the day.

7,25 kilos.

The weather forecasts told that the winter was coming so I just had to take a day off from work three days after our last trip. The wind direction had changed to east, it was full moon and everything else seemed to be wrong from my opinion. But because this was probably my last chance to fish in the open water I just gave it a go.

The day started actually quite well. I caught two Pike of about three kilos each with my five first casts. Pike were on surprisingly good bite and after few small fish I hooked something slightly better sized. It was only a Pike of 6,5 kilos but it took me a while to land it because the wind was pushing my boat to the reeds. I’m usually using jerkbaits for Pike but this day they seemed to like more at old fashion wobblers. So I caught most of my days catch with a Westin Jätte wobbler. My total catch of the day was 14 Pike and the six and a half kilos fish was the biggest I saw today. Still, not a bad day to end this years boat fishing trips.