Monster Pike, New PB (1/7/18)

[JDTuna]

After seeing all the posts of big pike coming through the ice, I decided that I needed to give them a shot over the weekend. After all, it was January 7 and I still needed to make my first trip of 2018. What better target than monster pike?

Got out on the ice early, and despite the record low temperatures the lack of wind made for a pretty comfortable day. I got my tip ups set up, and settled in waiting for a flag.

The first flag popped relatively quickly. It ended up being a pike around 25". Not the one I was after, but certainly nice to break the ice (pun intended) on the first fish of the year and avoid the skunk.



Nothing happened for a while after that, so I moved a couple of my tip ups. The move paid off, and not long after I ended up getting a couple of flags. They ended up being a couple of nice largemouth bass. Not the target species, but still fun.





Since I had caught a couple of fish after moving some tip ups, I decided to move one more that had seen no action all morning.
After 20 minutes in the new spot, the flag popped.

This was a big fish bait, so I was hoping for a quality pike on the other end. The line started taking off slowly at first, then speeding up...a sign of a big pike. I set the hook, and immediately felt heavy weight. I got the fish close to the hole, then it went nuts and took a very long run. It was back and forth for a few minutes, using one hand to fight the fish and the other to scoop slush out of the hole. I finally got a glimpse of her, and I knew she was big. I got her head in the hole and got a hand on the gill plate, and she went nuts rolling and spinning. Unfortunately, she wrapped the wire from the rig around my pinky, tightening the loop with every roll. I lost grip of the gill plate, and she was attached to my pinky, tightening the wire as it cut into my finger. Not a good position to be in, but I wasn't going to lose this fish. I plunged my other hand into the hole and grabbed the other gill plate and hauled her out. I had my trophy pike sitting at my feet. This was the one I had been looking for over the past few years targeting pike. The fish was 40 inches and insanely fat, she must have been pushing 20lbs. She was quickly released after a couple of pics.





It was noon at this point, so decided to end the day on a high note and headed home.