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I had a multispecies day and a few surprises. This was my first trip since hard water season, and in the middle of an extended period of unseasonably warm weather. The water ranged from a cold 48 degrees with snowmelt in rivers to 74 degrees in the backs of shallow bays. This report spans 2 days, during which lots of fish species were pushing shallow.

My big fish was a 31" pike of nearly 10 lbs. I caught it in the mud on a swimbait, and expected it to be well past spawning and into early summer patterns. It was fat and healthy looking. My freezer is empty, so this was a keeper. To my surprise, when I filleted it out, I found that it was full of eggs with an empty stomach. I wouldn't have kept it had I known this, and I was quite shocked that the spawning hadn't happened a month and a half ago. My typical summer temperature-related fishing plans seem to have been thwarted by a late spawn, possibly due to low water levels and no periods of high spring runoff in the lake? Anyone with suggestions about pike spawning, please let me know. I thought my skills as an untrained fisheries biologist were better than this!

Another surprise came when I caught a 10" perch, also full of eggs. I thought they would have spawned in colder water, too. Lots of perch seem to be still schooled up and in the 4-6' depth range. Some good ones, too. I'm seeing better perch in C d' A than I have in years.

Crappies are starting to show and I caught 3 over 11" and lost a couple that looked bigger, though I didn't find any stacked up yet. I caught a 16" smallmouth nearby on a crappie swimbait and lost a 3 lb. pike as well.

Small Largemouth seem to be inhabiting some of the same warming waters as small pike. I did catch a 3 lb. 14 oz. largemouth within minutes of the big pike. Also well-fed and certainly a pre-spawn female. Bass are starting to cruise at times in schools. Small bluegills and tiny bass are on the bank.

Quite a few hammer-handle pike and a few up to 3-4 lbs. were up sunning, and most that were seen were easily fooled, and it's fun to watch a small pike tail a lure and eventually eat it in plain sight. Most of these were small fish, and I caught about 5 in one area in about half an hour.

The main lake was about 55 degrees, and shallower areas averaged in the low to mid 60s. Extremely shallow mud flats reached temperatures from 70-74 degrees by early evening, and were murky and full of what I think were bullheads that were just thick. I even lost what I think was about a 15" channel cat on a swimbait. Overall, though, the extreme shallow ends of bays were not worth the trolling motor time.

Anyone who wants to comment on pike spawning; please do so, as well as the perch. I was blown away. A couple of other pike fisherman I saw at the boat launch reported that the pike were still spawning, which I doubted until I saw the eggs. Just as a side note, I gathered the egg sacks from the one pike I kept and weighed them at 1 lb., 8 oz. I'm making my first attempt at caviar... if I write another post next week you'll know I survived eating it!

Lucius

5/11/2013 7:51:00 PM

So when a few of us went to Last Mountain Lake in Saskatchwan last year in June we found out something interesting that sounds very similar to what is happening here maybe? Apparently last year Last Mountain Lake was warming up and getting ready for pike and perch to spawn when all of a sudden a severe cold front blew in and pushed all of them back out because it was too cold to spawn. It was cold for quite sometime and then it got warm really fast and the pike and perch were unable to spawn. As it was describe to us if it gets too warm, the pike will bypass spawning and just absorb the eggs. Thats when the fishing can be tough sometimes as they have all those eggs to absorb for energy so they don't eat all the time. We caught some pike (smaller about 26") and the water temps were in the upper 50's low 60's at the back of the bays. When we cleaned some of them, they too were full of eggs and thats when one of the guides that runs out of a local marina explained to us. Sounds like something similar has happened here.....

farmer_aa

5/12/2013 11:02:00 PM

May be so, that's crazy. I'm wondering if the same thing happened due to lower than average runoff and water levels, because the temps seem adequate if not too high. I caught perch today that look like they're ready to explode and are oozing eggs when grabbed. As for the pike eggs, the caviar I made was totally decent with crackers, cream cheese, and diced raw onions. I'm still alive, so I think it was a success! Thanks for the analysis of pike behavior.

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