Mike M. traveled up to Alaska to spend a week fishing with Midnight Sun Trophy Pike -- THE place to be if you want to chase some of the largest northern pike in the world. Read his thoughts below:
"I have fished on six continents and I have never observed a wild fishery with such a healthy magnitude of record-size trophy fish. This is the Jurassic Lake of pike fishing and should rank at the top of any angler’s fishing bucket list. Many thanks to Midnight Sun Trophy Pike Adventures for all the life-long memories and sharing a slice of their remote & expertly-run operation.”
The intel breakdown for the week is as follows:
We had three days of clear blue skies and temperatures in the low 70’s, which seemed to coerce the fish into long feeding periods. We caught the majority of our biggest fish during this window and took advantage of the higher water levels down-river to capitalize on fish holding in tighter, smaller slews. Smaller bunny fly patterns (4” to 6”) with a bit of flash were the order of the day from about 11am until 2pm and big red & white 10” T-bones seemed to be the downfall of brute pike (>45”) in the late afternoon as their metabolism picked up. The sight fishing was incredible and we often observed big fish stacked like cord-wood in specific areas…especially in shallow finger lakes with early cabbage grass growth.
The water levels over the last week consistently dropped by about 6 inches per day and we observed the mass exodus of baitfish from finger lakes. However, as the weather shifted from warm & sunny to cold & windy, the fish became really selective. We had a morning of long follows, but very few eats. We switched to very small & natural 2” bunny pattern and got a handful of fish (all around 44”) to eat. During this period, the fishing was really tough, but it wasn’t until we took some time to fish for sheefish at current confluences that we started to catch big pike in the main channel. This forced a game plan change for the last few days.
The last two days, we focused on ‘gatekeeper’ fish at the entrances to slews off the main channel which had actively feeding sheefish nearby. I switched to a very flashy, sky-blue 8” buford and started to out pace the conventional fisherman by about 3-to-1 on bigger pike. I missed my shot on a fish over 50” on the second to last day with this fly.
Of note, I fished with 3 other conventional anglers this week and the combination of a Johnson spoon and a fly in the water were a deadly combination as it seemed to give the fish the option of two different presentations at any time of the day."
