Pike this weekend

[Banditto]

The pike fishing was red hot in mid-MI this weekend. My wife and I were fishing alone at our cottage in Ogemaw county--nobody else dared the wind storm. We got started late at 9AM and the fishing was steady all day. Every 15 minutes or so at least one pike would check out the bait, if not take it. I had multiple times where I was watching one fish around the bait, only to have another bigger one come in from the opposite direction and snag the bait. Also had 4 times pulling one in, where the sucker fell off and another pike slammed the free falling bait.

The highlite of the day was I saw a nice musky (prolly smaller than legal, but hey) and caught a 21" musky.

The one thing that we noticed was I was using a perch colored spoon and my wife was using a dead minnow rig. The pike loved my spoon, while the larger fish would take hers every time. I am investing in some more of those 2/$1 spoons!

Anyhow did anybody else fish?

[Mule Skinner]

Congrats ! sounds like some great action. Can you tell me more about the dead minnow rig your wife was using ? Tip up or jigging ?
Thanks

[Banditto]

The logic behind a dead minnow rig is the larger fish don't want to expend too much energy for their meal. So they look for dead minnows laying on the bottom.

It has a weight that is laying on the bottom, then a hook 6" off the bottom. Some people add a hook for the tail and one for the head.

So you hook a dead minnow and lay it out in the open where the big guys will see it.


We also use live minnow rigs too that don't pierce the minnow with the hook. The rig has a noose through the eyelet of the hook and then you snug it up around the minnows head--and you put a piece of shrink tubing around the eyelet to hold the noose in place. At the end of the day you loosen the noose and return the minnow to the bait bucket. If you get a strike you can almost guarantee that the minnow will be decapitated, but otherwise it keeps the minnow swimming livelier longer.