Pike fishing around Montreal

This week's target species was Northern Pike, as it's a good time to fish decent sized pike around Montreal. Started off be taking Avi and Eli out for a shore fishing outing on Victoria day, as they were off school. Got to my spot to find the water level a lot lower than normal, and current was stronger than usual as well. The pike where nowhere in sight, though I did catch a nice sized bass. Eventually moved to our second spot for the afternoon, again, the pike were nowhere to be seen. Kids managed to catch some more bass while prospecting for pike, so we moved to a third spot, same story again.

Headed out with my friend Jimmy a couple days later, as he invited me to fish for pike off his boat on the St Lawrence River. We started off trolling for a while, no fish in sight. Eventually hit a shallow shoal, Jimmy hooked into a few nices ones, while I only managed some follows, a couple hits, and a small pike I lost when it dove into a thick clump of weeds.

After a couple hours and not much fish biting, we moved off to another area, water was a bit deeper and murkier. Jimmy and I started catching them on our first few casts, average sizes were decent:

We ended up with a total of 25 to 30 pike hooked throughout the day, all on spinnerbaits. Ended up catching one more pike trolling a Smithwick Rogue on the way home. With the water temp warming up, I hope to get back into some good still fishing for carp and possibly channel cats next week.