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Catching Canadian "pike" with a Net

Geoff Maynard

The e-mail from Canada read "Sure - we got muskies by the million. So....when are you thinking of coming?"

At last - I had wanted to fish for the Canadian pike for longer than I can remember, and my interest had been boosted after I'd seen all the info on the Internet Muskie page.....

It's been a crazy year for me so far. I seem to have got so many facets of my life mixed up and thrown together developing into a fascinating new stew of interest. It started out in the midst of last winter. The lakes were frozen solid, the rivers were in flood and no fishing was to be had anywhere. I had to look elsewhere for my entertainment. As always, my eyes automatically went to my battered 10 year old Macintosh computer.

This machine has been both the bain of my life and a replacement mistress, or so my wife must think, what with all the hours that I spend on it. I had heard an awful lot about this new Internet thing and so little of it made any sense. Deciding to investigate it further, I swallowed deep and lashed out a seasons bait money bringing my system into line with the current technology.

I had to learn new words and anachonyms. In fact "anachonyms" was one of the words I had to learn, along with "Modems", "FTP", "Servers" etc. I still don't pretend to understand half of what's going on, but I'm having the time of my life finding out. I won't bore you with all the details but I eventually got connected to the Internet and found a carp-fishing page on the World Wide Web by Steve Hill. It was the beginning of a new dawn.

I contacted Steve by the new (to me) medium of e-mail and a firm friendship soon developed between us. As the majority of the fishing related information on the net was American based, we both felt that a UK fishing presence was needed. Steve is a techno wizard of the first order, with him at the keyboard and me on the phone, we started to yank the UK angling scene into the '90s and UK Fishing World was born.

An electronic angling magazine with an associated e-mail fishing club started the ball rolling. The clubs membership expoded and soon we started to get queries from the trade. An angling Trade Show was added to the web-site with companies displaying thier entire full colour catalogues all on screen. Then came the specialist groups, the Pike Anglers Club, Carp Society, Catfish Conservation Group, NASA etc. Venues, bait companies, and megabyes replaced the bent rods in my head. At least, for a while it did. Soon we were working every spare hour into the night on our new baby. Within a month we had the biggest fishing related web-site in Europe. We still have. UK Fishing World now comprises of a huge amount of fishing information, which if it was printed out would be the size of several telephone books.

The e-mail fishing club soon became too confusing. With all of the 100's of new members, the sea anglers, game fishers and coarse anglers in the club did not want to read about each others sports, so the list was split into sections relevent to the anglers interests. More sub sections are planned - The carp anglers already have thier own list and it won't be long before the Pike anglers, matchmen etc get thiers too.

Ever been in a tackle shop and overheard a conversation about a topic that really interested you - but you felt that it would be bad manners to butt in and put forward your own views? And then left the shop wishing that you could have taken part in the discussion? Of course, we all have. The great thing about the e-mail club on the Net is that you can join in and nobody objects. Far from it - your point of view is what it is all about. A comment like "Hey, that lake you were talking about sounds like a great place, I wish I could fish there" will often result with an answer saying " No problem, I can get a guest ticket. I'll meet you at...". The UK Fishing e-mail club is all about how to make new fishing partners and fish the best waters in the country. And it is 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And it is free!

The members of the UK Fishing club take advantage of each other all the time, with mutual benefits. I recently spent a couple of weeks over in Canada and the States fishing with a couple of anglers that I'd met on the net. In New Jersey I went out for a day carp fishing with Bill Dower - an expatriot Cockney publican now living in the States. What a character, and what a great days fishing we shared, though no monsters were around. For me, good company is half of what fishing is all about.

From New Jersey, Maggi and I flew on to Canada to go "pike" fishing with Martin. Ahh. You wondered when I would get back to the pike eh?

I had first met Martin 20 years ago and apart from the odd postcard we had rarely corrisponded - till the advent of e-mail. Now we talk every week. This guy is a joker of the first degree and he caught me right out.

"Sure I can put out you up... No problem" was the response when I told him that money was tight. "And I have some of the best pike fishing that you have ever imagined waiting for you. Bring no tackle, the guide will have a boat and everything that you need. And I'm paying or it's no deal". A guide? Hmm. Well... why not. That's the way they do things over there.

As we were only in British Columbia for a few days we we only managed to get out fishing with Martin for two days - so we couldn't pick the weather. The pleasant sunny spring days that we had envisioned turned out to be a malestrome of hail, rain and gales. The three of us, Martin, Maggi and I turned up at the guides shop and got kitted out in neoprene chest waders and arctic clothing. Then down the the launch ramp and off into the Frazer river.

The Frazer river I knew from my geography lessons at school. I had imagined huge rafts of logs floating down it, with lumberjacks in checked shirts riding them. Wrong. Well, not today anyway. As wide as the Thames at London Bridge, and the same colour, it was belting through like an express train. We anchored up in 30 ft of water, in an area clear of, but surrounded by, sunken logs. An Eagle fish finder pointed the way.

Our tackle comprised of one piece plexi-glass rods, 10 ft long with about a 4lb TC. The reels looked a bit of an over-kill. Shimano TLD20 multipliers loaded with 60lb Gorilla braid! When I commented to Martin that we wern't exactly fishing light tackle, he just shrugged and made some comment about snags etc. Strange... I thought I saw him wink at the guide out of the corner of my eye.

The baits were deadbaits - six inch long white fish who's name sounded like Oolican. That's probably wrong, but it's sometimes hard to be accurate when deciphering the North American accent. Hooks were very big singles, trebles being frowned upon in these parts. What shook me though was that the fact that there were no wire traces! Just heavy monofil. I kept my mouth shut - after all, there are many countries in the world where where heavy monofil replaces wire traces, and if it works for them......

Four to six ounces of lead on a running ledger were needed to keep the bait down in the swirling current, and we used three rods - one rod per angler being the rules in BC. We agreed to take turns on the rods so that each person had a chance of a fish. Although I protested (not too hard) I was forced to take the first run.

The weather was deteriorating rapidly. The sky was by now a nasy shade of slate and howling winds forced the rain to fall almost horizontally. I was looking out at a whirlwind blowing a few miles away when my attention was grabbed by the center rod bouncing in the rest. I leaned forward and picked the rod up. The rod tip first quivered then bent down through 30 degrees. I whopped the rod up hard into a firm stike and felt the hook connect. I hoped for the solid thump and slow determined run of a good pike - but I didn't get it. Instead, I was almost pulled into the river by a tremendous yank from the fish, the clutch literally screaming under my hands! "She's comin' up" the guide called, and before I could gather my wits, an emormous exposion of water downstream proved him right. The fight was on.

The biggest pike I ever caught was a 25lb fish from a Kent lake. My biggest river pike was just over the twenty pound mark (No, it was NOT 19lb 15ozs!). I also have had hundreds of decent doubles, so I knew from the amazing fight I was having that this was some very big fish. "Bloody Hell! This is amazing... The pike of a lifetime - YEEE HAAA!!" (The latter being a fishing war cry taught to me be that venerable pike angler John Roberts).

Now at Bough Beech Reservoir I have watched guys beat pike into the upper thirties in less than 8 minutes from a boat. I had already been playing this bugger for over 5 minutes before I smelt a rat. I cast a quick glance over my shoulders to see Martin and the guide sniggering to each other. "Here, I think you might need this". I looked in astonishment at what Martin was holding, a big game fighting belt. He strapped it around me and with no small amount of difficulty, I tucked the butt into its seat. No sooner was that done when rod buckled right over. I couldn't believe it. Suddenly the rod tip was in the water! The fish had bolted upstream and, against that fierce current, was rushing towards me. Within seconds the fish was under the boat headed for Alberta, stripping line off of a tightly set clutch. I pumped like mad to little avail for another five minutes, and it was yet another five minutes before I got the joke as a huge silver cruise missile was eased into the boat.

The guide chewed the end off of a cigar and spat it into the river. "White sturgeon" said he seriously. With a straight face he continued "Biggest member of the pike family there is". The whole boat cracked up laughing at my expense. It was hard to be upset with four foot of geaming torpedo in my arms. Estimated at about 30 - 35lbs, it was soon photographed and released to fight again another day. We only took another two fish that day, neither of them more than 15lb but still very impressive fighters.

The following day brought new meaning to the term 'raining cats and dogs'. It was wet and cold and miserable - but we caught fish, twelve of them. I personally had a 60 a 50 and a few in the 35 to 40lb bracket. Best fish went to Maggi and was estimated at about eighty pounds. When I asked the guide why he didn't ever weigh them he told me that it was too difficult to weigh a big fish, and small ones aren't worth weighing. I reached into my bag to get my weigh sling and readied myself to protest that that we could easily have weighed the big fish we'd caught that day. Before I could do so, he went on to tell me that the rod-caught record for the Frazer river was eighteen hundred pounds with six and seven hundred pounders not that uncommon!

I kept my mouth shut about my big weigh sling!