Pike, Pike & More Pike; A 2023 Recap
14 Northern Pike over 36” were caught on Aaron’s Guide Service during the 2023 Season. 7 of which were 40” or bigger. You might ask or reason in your head, “What is the secret to their success,” or maybe you may say, “Why can’t I have those kinds of results?”
SPRING OF 2023: It certainly wasn’t butterflies and rainbows on our charter this year. Unfortunately, with success comes many hardships and some of you were on board for those hard times. Before we had a chance to hook into our first Pike of the year, our motor blew on the first trip of the year. This caused a ruined trip, two weeks’ worth of canceled trips and a major financial loss. We replaced our motor with a Yamaha 250HP 4-Stroke and were back on the water in a 2-week span. That lost time caused us to lose the pattern of the Pike for the first 7 hours of the first trip back. Our client Pace was able to hook into a beautiful 34” Pike right at the end of the trip which caused our fists to pump and smiles all around. The next 2 weeks we went on an absolute tear. From May 25th-June 7th we ran 4 days worth of charters and caught 7 Northern Pike over 38”. This does not include the dozens and dozens of encounters with some absolute giant fish that followed, swiped, and spat hooks. This was one of the best stretches we had had in the history of Aaron’s Guide Service one that we will never forget. TIP OF THE DAY The secret to that stretch? We stayed out of the shallow water and positioned our boat in deep water but cast onto the shallow water, running our lures over the weed edges and drop-offs. We stayed away from top water lures and focused on heavier baits that sank. This was a very hot stretch of outside temperature. We cast hard and spent many hours pounding the same spots. One June 8th, the water hit 70 degrees and Pike completely disappeared from their spring habitats and descended to deeper high oxygen waters.
Summer of 2023: During the spring the walleye requests were flooding in on a weekly basis. We had been focusing on Pike the last 4 years and walleye wasn’t the focus. In June, we invested in Garmin LiveScope, a revolutionary forward-facing sonar that revealed the mysteries of the deep. Oddly enough, the same weed edges we had focused on a month before, started to produce walleye after walleye. We started offering trips focused on walleye and smallmouth bass and the feedback from clients was tremendous. We ran many trips in late August and early September solely focusing on those species. TIP OF THE DAY We kept it simple with the walleye. We used ultra-light rods from Lews and KastKing, with 15-lb test KastKing braid with an 8-lb 24” fluorocarbon leader. We used the drop-shot method and did not troll once and the walleye couldn’t resist water was lowered on a platter for them.
Fall of 2023: Finally the long-anticipated cool temperatures arrived in mid-September. We had prepared for this time by going out after dark in the summer and marking all the great weed beds on sonar where we knew the Pike would be dwelling in the fall. This helped us discover some new greats spots without losing precious fishing time. The cool nights and mornings caused a beautiful mist to settle on the lake each morning and the views of the lake and Adirondack mountains were tremendous, a fan favorite for most clients. Once sight-seeing was over, our clients picked up their heavy and X-heavy rods with 60lb test line and started castings. We used spinnerbaits, glide baits, and swimbaits and threw those lures until our arms were falling off. On our first day of fall Pike trips we hooked into a beautiful 41” Northern. We went on another great stretch of trips catching 6 fish over 37”. The highlight of the fall was when our client Timmy, who had never caught a single pike in his life, hooked into a giant 43 1/2” Pike. That fish fought hard, but Timmy fought harder and won that battle. I’ve never witnessed a group of grown men, jump, laugh, and shout for joy, more than this group did. As the calendar days progressed, fewer and fewer fish were being caught. Our final encounter came as we were finishing up a trip. We cast out our glide bait and a true 50” class fish came bursting out of the water. The group in the boat sat speechless. I bent down to a knee, hands cupped into my face. That was our chance, the chance we had dreamed of was lost. I looked up, and said with a questioning tone, “50-inch class?” Everyone shook their head in agreement. Whether it was 48” or 50” or 52” no one will ever know but it was in a whole class of its own far bigger than any mid-40” fish we had crossed paths with. By late October time, our 250HP engine was beginning to give us trouble. That heart-sinking feeling of a motor struggling to perform is one of the worst for a charter captain. Between that and battling brutal weather, with heavy rain, snow, and everything else, we decided to end the 2023 season.
We want to thank everyone who came aboard this year and made it such a great year. Each client who joined us will always have a place in my heart and I can honestly say that it is my desire that everyone who came aboard returns again.
2024 is booking wildly quickly. We have filled up most of the available days in May and June but still have a few left. We have booked almost the same amount of trips for May & June that we did in all of 2023. We have an incredible announcement coming up in a few weeks regarding our motor situation which is going to solve our troubles hopefully once and for all.
Before I sign off, I want to share a part of my life that I am quiet about but is so important to me. It is what got me through the hardest points in my life and what I rest on every day. It is summarized best in Psalm 46:1-3 “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.”
