Fall fishing

[MattM37]

Do you do any fall fishing? Year after year, I find I enjoy it more and more. Had some good smallmouth fishing in the river this past Saturday, caught most of them on old-style topwaters, a frog hula popper and an old Pop-R. I also tried this old Flatfish I have from my grandfather -- no hits, but did get one enormous swirl behind it, on two consecutive retrieves. I'm thinking that might have been a big pike -- this river has a few. Interestingly, over the years I've caught maybe two dozen pike in this river, and four of them have been silver pike. They're pretty cool looking. First time I got one I was fifteen or sixteen and I thought, "Holy Crap, my first muskie!" Later I was telling our neighbor -- who happened to be a conservation department fisheries biologist, believe it or not. He said nope, it was a silver-strain northern. I had never heard of such a thing.

[fitch270]

I don’t usually but I’m going to try this year. The boy’s been hitting the river hard this past week, school starts in the morning. He’s been catching a little bit of everything. Funny thing is after trying to catch carp all summer with little success he’s landed 4 the past few days, one on a black curly tail and the others on trout magnets. One today on an ultra light rig with 4# test. Also smallmouth bass on his fly rod. His story telling has me developing a bit of an itch to go.

Silver Pike is a new one to me.

[Solitario Lupo]

Never heard a pike being called silver before. My two favorite times to fish is in fall and spring. Bass are picking up. So will the Muskie and other fish. Salmon and trout will start to make their runs. As the water gets colder the fish start to swim around.

[PigHunter]

Perhaps I'll work in a little fall fishing. Usually hunting and carousing take up my Fall weekends

[MattM37]

Perhaps I'll work in a little fall fishing. Usually hunting and carousing take up my Fall weekends

Rent a pontoon boat and you can fish and carouse at the same time!

[MattM37]

Never heard a pike being called silver before. My two favorite times to fish is in fall and spring. Bass are picking up. So will the Muskie and other fish. Salmon and trout will start to make their runs. As the water gets colder the fish start to swim around.

The silver pike is a mutation of a northern, not a separate species. The first one I caught, the silver-gray color of it made me think muskie or hybrid, but I could clearly see the defined spots of a northern, dimmer against a gray background but still visible. That told me it wasn't a tiger muskie, which was my first thought, as the river I was fishing then does hold a few of those. I asked another biologist not too long ago if they might still be hybrids, only with the pike spots instead of the tiger muskie stripes, and he said nope, he'd never seen such a thing, it was definitely a pike.

If you search google for silver-phase pike, you'll find quite a bit. Some of the photos look to me more like regular-phase northerns, not as silvery as the ones I've caught, but still a lot lighter than the usual northern.

[MattM37]

I don’t usually but I’m going to try this year. The boy’s been hitting the river hard this past week, school starts in the morning. He’s been catching a little bit of everything. Funny thing is after trying to catch carp all summer with little success he’s landed 4 the past few days, one on a black curly tail and the others on trout magnets. One today on an ultra light rig with 4# test. Also smallmouth bass on his fly rod. His story telling has me developing a bit of an itch to go.

Silver Pike is a new one to me.

I love standing in a small river and seeing a couple of monster carp just come lazily along. You know right away they're just carp but that whole "Whoa, big fish!" excitement kicks right in.

Years ago, I used to sight-fish for them, trying to lob crayfish tails or whole crayfish upstream in their paths. It worked fairly often. Sometimes I'd even stalk upstream after seeing a little cloud of silt come down from where one was up there rooting in the bottom. As I'm sure you and your son know, however, they're just about as spooky as trout. Good fun though on a summer day when nothing much else is hitting.

[Solitario Lupo]

That’s funny how they call it a mutation but whatever. I see where you call it a Muskie as others called it that to on the internet. As it go you still caught a pike. Was it a decent size cause they said they are ill so wonder if it causes them to do other mutated stuff.

[MattM37]

That’s funny how they call it a mutation but whatever. I see where you call it a Muskie as others called it that to on the internet. As it go you still caught a pike. Was it a decent size cause they said they are ill so wonder if it causes them to do other mutated stuff.

All four that I've caught have been 24-30 inches, seemed normal and healthy other than the color, which doesn't mean they were healthy. Neither biologist said anything about illness, though, just that it was a color phase.

[PigHunter]

Rent a pontoon boat and you can fish and carouse at the same time!

Great idea!