3-11-04 - First Fair fish of the morning...a beautiful golden sucker!

Gotta love when the bit turns on!

That's #2 for the season.

Followed up with another nice fair bite.

And we've released #3!

3-11-04 - Yes, I'm addicted...not like it's a bad thing...

Waters Fished: Pike River
Fish Caught: 2/6 fair, +2 foul
Outing Date: 3-11-04
Weather: Partly Cloudy turning to snow.
Air Temp: 35F dropping to 31F
Water Temp: 40F
Water Level: dropping, 45 cfs
Water Color: Visibility back to about 1 foot
Fish Species: Steelhead, Northern Pike
Pattern Fished: Various Egg Patterns
Pattern Color: Keyed in on Chartreuse and Pink
Fishing Quality: Pretty darn good.

Ha ha, bet you've been wondering where the latest installment of the Rambling Reports was hiding....in my brain, my email box, wherever I could stash the info; I've been too busy fishin!

Thursday morning's outing found me back at the Pike again, early, this time fishin' with Timmaaaay! Couldn't ask for a better fishin' partner. So I got in as early as could be, about 5:40. Timmaay had brought the search light and shined the pool...his report, "About 50 suckers".

Not much happened for our first 45 minutes or so, well, we did catch TONS, and I mean TONS of suckers. Actually got a couple fair through the course of the morning, but the vast majority were fouled. It got to the point that just about every cast you could not help but foul up on a sucker; they were just that thick.

6:30 saw the first good fight; Timmay pulled the "netboy" and helped me bring in a gorgeous, still chrome yet already spawned out hen! Not a huge fight, but fun all the same.

The bite stayed on for a while; I'd say about 7:15 I tied into another hen, this time a fat mama, and we got her in fair. 7:30 AM, yet another fish fair. Timmay goes for the net job yet again, but this time he somehow lets here swim right between his legs. The lead fly caught up on his waders, and snap-off...we released that one ;) Could've been, would've been, should've been #3 brought in fair!

I had noticed a fish literally sitting 2 feet away from where I stood. It was just deep enough that I could make out it's silhouette and it's tail...its strangely striped tail. Wait, suckers don't have stripped tails. Hmm...maybe it's a funky steelhead. I gotta get a better look at that fish.

Meanwhile I'm not quite sure what Timmay was up to on the other side of the pool...somewhere along the morning I easily tied into 3 more fair; brought a couple in foul (that's the nature of the beast) but all in all a great morning. 8:00, the wind kicked up; whitecaps formed on the pool above us; yes it was that windy. Temps dropped below freezing as our guides started to ice up. Then, wouldn't you know it, the snow started! That kept up for about 30 minutes.

So back to this fish by my feet; I drift my egg in front of it a few times but don't get any interest. I place another couple drifts and brush the line on it's back..the fish rises and shows its face...that ain't no steelhead - it's a NORTHERN PIKE! That's the second northern I've spotted on the Pike!

Well, considering how many smolts were swimming around (yeah, we got lots of those too) I figured this pike is a happy camper. After he spooked I switched to a large white streamer in the hopes of getting his interest...nope. 9:00 rolled around and it's time to call it another great day on the Pike. Turns out Timmay had an "alright" morning, 0/4, but he did personally land 63 suckers ;)

  MP