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Northern Pike Back to our Home Page

There are many places where you will find Northern Pike in Northern Ontario Lakes. Generally, you will find small to medium size pike in the back of bays where there is thick weeds, lily pads and wild rice. The small to medium size pike are feeding on small minnows, bugs, frogs and each other. When you come out to the edge of the weeds, the pike will get bigger because the pike have the food of the bay to their back and also have the chance of taking a small Walleye swimming by the outside of the weeds. So where are the big pike?

Big pike generally do not bother with small minnows, frogs and bugs. Their main food is Walleyes, small hammer-handles, Suckers, Chub and Whitefish. The big pike will hang out where they can ambush Walleyes. The prime ambush area is points leading into bays. They will also hang around rocky points, shoals, islands and other places where there are Walleyes. The best place to get a big trophy pike is at the mouth of a stream or river, narrows between islands and water-flow between lakes. The big pike just sit there waiting for Walleyes to swim through. Walleyes tend to migrate around a lake all year, whether it's moving to find cooler water, deeper water, more food or even finding their spawning grounds.

Of all the game fish you can catch in Ontario , Northern Pike are the easiest. Pike will hit just about any lure. The most popular lures for Pike are the "red & silver" and the yellow "five-of-diamonds" DareDevils. Pike also hit jigs, Rapalas and Thundersticks. Some of the biggest pike are caught with small jigs while Walleye fishing. It makes sense because the big pike will patrol the outer parameter of the schools of Walleyes.

Walleye

Walleye Jigs: If you want to fish with jigs, use a 1/8 oz or ? oz jig with a white, yellow, green or black twistertail. Add a minnow to your jig in the May-June period for best results. Switch to a jig tipped with a piece of worm (night crawler) during July to mid-August. White twistertails are the best and will work all year.

Walleye Lures: You can cast or troll with lures along the shore and catch Walleyes. Original Floating Rapalas or Junior Thundersticks in the Silver, Blue or Fire-tiger colors work best. You can also use small crank baits and shallow running shad-raps.

Try jigging straight down in thick weeds in the 5 to 10-foot range. You can also jig off rocky points or shoals where there are drop-offs. If it's windy, then you can just drift and jig over the hot area.

Deep Water: During the day, the smaller 1 to 4-pound Walleyes will stay shallower. The big trophy Walleye are usually females and will hide in deep holes during the day. You can try fishing deeper for them with jigs but you cannot really cover a lot of ground and fishing deep with jigs is only effective if you find a deep spot where the Walleyes are congregating.

Open Water Walleyes: Sometimes the big trophy Walleyes will stay suspended out in open water and feed on schools of baitfish in the thermal layer. Every lake is different but generally in the north they stay between 15 and 25 feet deep in the open water. You need a depth finder to pick up the schools to determine how deep they are and where they are.

Try trolling deep with Husky Jerks or other deep diving lures. You would need to estimate how much line you need out to be at the depth you want. When you buy a lure, sometimes the manufacturer will have a depth-to-line-ratio chart. Silver and brown seem to be the better colors out in open water. You can also try fire-tiger or blue as they are excellent colors most of the year.