What We’ve been up to:
Since our last report we have been very focused on pike fishing and we have had some successful trips and scouting missions lately. Water temps are now in the mid 40’s and pike fattening up for a long winter. The fish we have been catching have been in very good condition and we’ve even seen some mid-sided pike with pike bites on them! There are some true monsters around! This past wednesday water temps were in the low 40’s with air temps in the mid 60’s and low pressure with west winds 10-20mph. This made for a long duration bite window from 10am until about 3:30 pm. We landed 4 pike with 3 at 30” and lost another 3 good fish with 4 or 5 other eats.
All of our pike were caught on a home tied verson of the Goodspeed Sucker pattern. This fly has been a game changer for our success rate and hook-up to landing ratio. With neutral bouyancy and a side to side swimming action these flies key in on the stalk and swallow instinct of essox predators. We’ve found that we can fish these flies with a slower retrieve than more traditional pike flies. Since these flies are tied on a shank instead of a hook the hook becomes modular. We can add two or three split rings then whatever hook will balance the fly effectively. The split rings allow the hooks to ride further from the fly and move freely in the pikes mouth instead of rotating out like traditional long shank pike hooks tend to do. Also whenever a hook gets dull or bent we can simply swap it out with a new one instead of needing to tie a completely new fly. We’ve done best with barbless 1/0 trebble hooks as they are able to find purchase in the bony mouths of pike 3X more often than single point hooks. We’d love to get you on the water and show you how to fish these innovative flies. Just watching them move through the water is a huge confidence booster!
We have also run a couple of trout trips since we last checked in. As of this writing temps on the andro are still in the mid- to upper 40’s and trout are eating the usual late season fair of worms, mops and eggs. Streamers have also been effective, especially with clouds and low pressure, but they are taking some fish on most days. We’ve done especially well with kreelix style flies. The best bite windows have been later morning throuh early afternoon when temps are at their warmest.
Looking forward:
While a cold front rushes in today we expect temps to bounce back on Sunday and Monday. We have both of these days open abs they look prime for pike! If you would like to get out for Pike or trout give us a shout asap! The next couple weeks look to provide good pike fishing on most days. Expect bite windows to tend to fall late morning into early afternoon on the colder days with wider bite windows on days with temps over 50 F. From here on any days over 50 with low pressure will fish the best and the coldest days will still offer some bite windows but they will be much shorter in duration.
Please give us a shout if you would like to get out before the snow flies. We still have some time but it is going fast! If you are looking to get on the books for next season now is a good time to give us a shout as we have already started booking dates for Spring of 2025. Just a heads up rates are going up for 2025 a bit, prices will run as follows: Full day float $550, half day floats $425, full day wade $500 half day wade $350.
Thank you to all who have fished with us this season! We hope to see some of you this fall and many of you next season!
Tight Lines,
Nate
