Great opener for pike on the Ottawa

[HotelTango]

The opener for pike is a big thing for me, in between ice out and the bass opener it's a day I look forward to each year up here in Petawawa. Went out on the Ottawa river Friday with a good friend from work and fished a few back bays. 5 fow was the deepest water in the bays but all the fish were caught in 3fow or less. After shaking off the rust and missing a few nice ones we were able to land some nice fish.





Biggest one of the day.



Went back out with my kids on Saturday hoping to get them onto a huge pike. Fished the same bays and we all had a bunch of follows but the pike were not as aggressive as the day before. Managed to land one beast with the help of the kids. Weighted in at 13.9Lbs. Took both of the kids working the net to get this sucker in the boat. Surprised I was able to get it in since the spinner bait I was using feel apart once it was in the net.



Took Sunday off and was back out on Monday with my daughter. Had one nice Pike come off boat side and landed one oos smallie. Looked like the the hot weather had the fish out of the shallows bays come noon and no more fish were caught or seen.

The weekends weapon of choice was a Booyah spinner bait, good lure but not meant for multiple 10Lbs pike. I will however be getting a few more of these for next years opener.



All fish were quickly released after a few pictures.

[Peron]

Awesome Pike!!! Good job! I was fishing heavy traffic Ottawa area and all I managed was one tolerable fish. A LOT of follows without much serious interest.

Quick hint: I love the Booyah spinnerbaits but after a disaster last year where I lost what was probably a PB Smallmouth, I have since successfully employed the following trick. The problem is the line or snap can slide down the "open V" towards the spinner blades during the fight which puts a huge amount of stress on the wire. You can avoid this by cutting a small piece of rubber tubing (I use small "rings" made from the tubing provided with trailer hooks for spinner baits like the one in your photo) and slide it over the "V". As long as that is in place it keeps the line/snap from sliding up and it greatly reduces the stress on the wire... unless you had a monster I suppose but that tubing is pretty strong.
Never figured out why they make them with the open "V" instead of a closed loop like some of the spinner baits but I assume it is a manufacturing/cost decision.

Rod

[HotelTango]

Awesome Pike!!! Good job! I was fishing heavy traffic Ottawa area and all I managed was one tolerable fish. A LOT of follows without much serious interest.

Quick hint: I love the Booyah spinnerbaits but after a disaster last year where I lost what was probably a PB Smallmouth, I have since successfully employed the following trick. The problem is the line or snap can slide down the "open V" towards the spinner blades during the fight which puts a huge amount of stress on the wire. You can avoid this by cutting a small piece of rubber tubing (I use small "rings" made from the tubing provided with trailer hooks for spinner baits like the one in your photo) and slide it over the "V". As long as that is in place it keeps the line/snap from sliding up and it greatly reduces the stress on the wire... unless you had a monster I suppose but that tubing is pretty strong.
Never figured out why they make them with the open "V" instead of a closed loop like some of the spinner baits but I assume it is a manufacturing/cost decision.

Rod

I will definitely give this a try, thanks for the tip.

[lape0019]

Sweet little report. Thanks for sharing

[Peron]

For reference here is a photo. I have posted/pm ed this trick a few times and my old Brain finally figured out a few minutes ago the adage that "A picture is worth a thousand words" This should save me effort next time I start typing!

IMG_0965.JPG (916.28 KiB) Viewed 5828 times

Rod

[Netman]

Some nice chunky fish

[howie]

Great Post.
Wish my Pike Opener on the lower Ottawa yielded pike half the size of those Hotel Tango. Nice fish! Still was a great to be back on the water but of my 8 pike (plus two walleye) all were fairly little. Exact same spinner bait as your picture LOL.
Thanks for sharing the tip for the spinner bait improvement, Peron.
Going to implement that one.
Good fishin',
Howie

[Markus]

Quality fish for sure. It's not easy to be consistant with bigger pike in that area, definately a sign you've got it figured out. Good fishin.

[Supernova224]

I've also wondered why they use the open V! I've been using small pieces of medical tubing over my spinners, seems to work well. Same idea.

[fatluke]

Those are some true northerns. Like Marks said, it's not easy to be consistent with big pike on the Ottawa.

Great fishing.

[harpdharp]

Wow great pike!

[CBB]

Congrats on some nice pike and great pics

[RJ]

Quality Slimers there for sure!

RJ

[Jul0682]

Really nice catches congrats

[Hank Jr]

Real nice fish thanks for the report