Trolling Northern Pike near Valleyfield

My buddy Jimmy invited me out on his new boat, a 20 foot Triton equipped with a 200 HP engine and most of the other bells and whistles. Plan was to catch some decent sized Northern Pike, a species that is most easily fished in spring.

We wanted to stay close to town, so we headed to the Valleyfield area. Valleyfield is well known for Northern Pike and smallmouth bass, but it was our first time actually targeting pike there.

We started off casting shallows and their drop offs to deeper water. I did manage one pike in the 4 lb range, the fish had the biggest tumor I have ever seen on a pike before, really disgusting. After incidentally catching a few spawning smallmouth bass, we switched spots.

We casted unsuccessfully for them all morning. Around noon, we decided to head out deeper and troll for them. We trolled mid range to deep diving crankbaits and eventually found our spot. We proceeded to catch 7 pike in the next couple hours, mainly in the 5 lb range. They were extremely aggressive and all put up better than average fights. One of them even swallowed my 6 inch lure, along with 3 sets of treble hooks.

Again, I had to leave early for daddy duty, it would have been nice to be able to stay a bit longer. Hope to head back there in the near future.