1000 Islands Pike Advice Sought

[Vettman69]

for some reason, I spent 2 or 3 years of pain throwing everything at pike on the river at the islands with no success. then I discovered the Mepps Syclops chrome with pink markings and everything changed. on a sunny day in the coves on the river I could see the pike streaking across the clear water from 50 yards away at my lure...amazing! such a bright flash on a sunny day certainly did the trick. caught 11 in 3 hours the first time I used it...definitely recommend you get some...hope this helps

[Commodore64]

We ended the week with over 60 pike taken. Almost all of them were taken on red and white daredevil spoon knockoffs (the cheap ones at TI Bait). I switched out the trebles for 4/0 Owner single hooks. This made it easier to jerk the weeds off. I used the trolling motor to keep the drift at about 0.5 MPH or less. Cast behind the drift, let the spoon down on a long count. I wanted to have to jerk it out of the weeds. With a hard jerk, and letting the rod tip quickly down the weeds generally came off the hook, and then it was a matter of retrieving the spoons just above the weeds. Pike definitely seemed to be oriented facing up stream, so casting downwind produced more strikes.

I have some bad low light pics from one particularly successful evening. We boated over 20 that night and kept 5 nice ones for the frying pan. The southeast corner of Maple Island and Rusho Bay were on fire.