Success With Toothy Critters - 2018

[Dave_W]

Time to start a new thread for the pike and muskie guys for 2018.

Pickens were pretty slim last year and few scores were put on the board. However, with the ice off the rivers and lakes toothies should be in close to shore now and the next few weeks are a good time, especially for pike.

Good luck with toothies in 2018 - let's see what ya catch...

 

[jifigz]

Good call Dave..I was just thinking that the pike should be close to shore in shallow waters where streams feed reservoirs. Too bad I only have one reservoir like that anywhere near me and no great way to haul my kayak right now. I am going to try to put more effort into a Juniata River musky this year as it has been a while since I've caught one.

 

[deaddriftx]

Pike are bitting on the Allegheny. Fishing will only get better from now until early May. Things seem to taper off from there.

 

[melvinp]

Susquehanna river is starting to wake up on the toothy side of things but ware warm clothes water is still darn cold.I've only caught one so far and it was not any monster but its a northern on a fly and i'm on the toothy board.

 

[jifigz]

melvinp wrote:
Susquehanna river is starting to wake up on the toothy side of things but ware warm clothes water is still darn cold.I've only caught one so far and it was not any monster but its a northern on a fly and i'm on the toothy board.

Yeah the waters are definitely still mighty cold. The Juniata was 36° yesterday. generally by this time of the year the water is in the low 40's and all of the fish really start turining on.

 

[Mwheaps32]

Unfortunately this snow we had won't help things out for a warming trend anytime soon

 

[Dave_W]

Mwheaps32 wrote:
Unfortunately this snow we had won't help things out for a warming trend anytime soon

No doubt - hard to believe it's officially springtime.
Opening Day of trout season is just a few days away and I still have not even been out for pre-spawn bass yet.

The good news is that the lakes and rivers are ice free in my neck of the woods. Toothies (especially pike) are active in cold water and I wouldn't let the water temps discourage you from giving them a try.

 

[Mike]

Mouths of Rivers' moderate to large size tribs almost always good at this time of the year...usually have good habitat with the rivers being up and concentrated suckers on spawning runs up tribs seem to help to concentrate Muskies as well. Predators are always opportunistic creatures and will break "standard" patterns and anglers' "rules" when forage becomes easy.

 

[Jlafko3]

Hey guys I am just getting into the toothy critters and can anyone tell me if my leader set up is okay? I have a 10 weight with sinking line, I am running 80 fluro butt section to 40 pound fluro, to 20 lb break section, then rio bite tippet to my fly. Any suggestions would be welcomed!

 

[CLSports]

That leader sounds good to me. Mine is very similar to that and it works just fine. I use 60lb fluoro bite tippet.

 

[fly_flinger]

Jlafko3 wrote:
Hey guys I am just getting into the toothy critters and can anyone tell me if my leader set up is okay? I have a 10 weight with sinking line, I am running 80 fluro butt section to 40 pound fluro, to 20 lb break section, then rio bite tippet to my fly. Any suggestions would be welcomed!

Sounds like a workable set up. I personally like a short leader when using a sinking line to take full advantage of the "sink" to get my fly down in the water column. My leader set-up is fly line to 25# Maxima to 60# or 80# flouro bite guard. Total length is about 3'. As the water warns up and the fish start moving to shallower water, the use of an intermediate or floating line might be a better choice and with that a longer leader too. IMO, 5'-7' is long enough. As with anything in this sport, it's situational and will take some experimenting to get the right set-up for you. Good luck.

 

[Fredrick]

Dave_W wrote:
Time to start a new thread for the pike and muskie guys for 2018.

Pickens were pretty slim last year and few scores were put on the board. However, with the ice off the rivers and lakes toothies should be in close to shore now and the next few weeks are a good time, especially for pike.

Good luck with toothies in 2018 - let's see what ya catch...

Prime time is almost over

 

[jifigz]

[/quote]


Prime time is almost over [/quote]

That's for sure. I honestly don't target pike/musky very often. I don't have much good (or any good, really) pike water around me and I'd rather target smallmouths than Musky in the Juniata. I may stop at Holman Lake tomorrow on my way home from York for some panfish. There are certainly a ton of muskies in there so maybe I'll get lucky as I'm trying to score some crappie fillets with my 4 or 6 weight.

 

[Solitariolupo]

Fredrick wrote:

Dave_W wrote:
Time to start a new thread for the pike and muskie guys for 2018.

Pickens were pretty slim last year and few scores were put on the board. However, with the ice off the rivers and lakes toothies should be in close to shore now and the next few weeks are a good time, especially for pike.

Good luck with toothies in 2018 - let's see what ya catch...

Prime time is almost over

I wouldn't say that. When the water goes over the 70s it's over.

 

[jifigz]

Solitariolupo wrote:

Fredrick wrote:

Dave_W wrote:
Time to start a new thread for the pike and muskie guys for 2018.

Pickens were pretty slim last year and few scores were put on the board. However, with the ice off the rivers and lakes toothies should be in close to shore now and the next few weeks are a good time, especially for pike.

Good luck with toothies in 2018 - let's see what ya catch...

Prime time is almost over

I wouldn't say that. When the water goes over the 70s it's over.

Well we didn't say that it was over.....we said almost. If the temps jump back up to near 90 again for a week that won't take long.

 

[sarce]

Was in the Buffalo NY area with my GF this past weekend. We had some down time Saturday and went to a local park with a small-ish creek running through it, which I read online contained pike and smallmouth bass.

I had taken much of my rods and other gear out of my car before the trip when I took it in for some repairs last week, so I only had my 4 wt, a bunch of trout flies, a few random tippet spools, and fortunately my box of big streamers. Started off with 0X and a clouser and within 5 casts a 20" range pike slammed it. My drag was too loose and I let that one get into a logjam, and the fly popped free.

I decided not to take chances and added a 6" bite section of 30 lb Rio saltwater tippet and tied on a murdich minnow. About 30 minutes later I saw a shadow following the fly across the bottom of a deep run, I stripped faster and the pike lunged forward and inhaled it. A good hard strip set and it was game on! Fortunately this one was hooked far from any logs and wasn't much trouble to land, save for one epic jump that made my heart skip a beat.

Apologies for the fish handling but it was total chaos and I was unprepared for pike fishing that day to say the least, but I made it work. Snapped a couple pics and then it flopped itself back into the water and swam off.

I missed another small pike after that and then switched over to fishing for the rather large smallmouths that were ignoring my flashy fly on heavy tippet, as it was almost time to leave. Didn't have much luck with the bass but I saw many more pike that weren't interested. I don't think I fished more than 100 yards of water and saw 10 pike, all in water I could comfortably roll cast across. Pretty wild!

 

[Fredrick]

Nice congrats int: I plan of taking my shot at these toothies this fall never caught a pike before .

 

[Dave_W]

Neat Sarce!

Nice to see some scores finally up on our toothy thread, even if from outside PA.

I got out for muskies on a local lake a week or so ago and could not even tempt a follow. With the rivers blown out, this has been my only toothy effort so far this summer.

 

[sarce]

I would kill to have a good population of these in the streams here in VA! They don't seem nearly as difficult as muskies but are still very exciting to watch stalk and destroy a fly.

Fred I hope you head north to chase them. Seems like pike in NY = pickerel in PA

 

[jifigz]

New York is filthy with Pike, but then again so is NW PA. Pike are fantastic fish to catch. Pike are awesome fish and so fun to catch. They don't fight super hard but they can give pretty impressive takes that are just downright bad.