My Labor Day pike.

[keithdog]

A bit of a story to this on. I went out planning to catch a HAWG bass. I was on the water by 4AM and getting a little action on a black spinnerbait. Just as the sun started to peek through I picked up a couple small bass on a jig. The Jitterbug wasn't producing at all so I took it off and put on a Rattlin Spook, one of my favorites! I took a couple more bass that were around 3 pounds each. Then I worked my way down to a floating swim platform anchored in about 8 foot of water. I often get a couple bass at this platform, so I cast the Spook out beyond the platform and started working it right alongside it. Suddenly, the water erupted and the fight was on. I thought it was an average bass at first as it didn't seem to be pulling all that hard. But when I applied some leverage, the pike took off and spun my boat around. For what seemed like 15 minutes, it was a patient tug of war with the pike towing my boat around where she wanted to go. When I got the fish close to the boat and realized it was a big pike with a Spook loaded with trebles, I paused for thought. I had no net and forgot to load the gaff that is for just such occations as this one. I grabbed my digital scale because it has the lip grabbing pincers for gripping the fish by the lip. Every time I reached to grab the pike by the lip it would take off. Finally I had it by the boat and looking worn out. Reached in with the scale and grabbed onto the lower jaw and started lifting it out. When the pike was about half way out of the water, it bucked like a bramma bull and fell back into the water, taking the scale with it and sending it out to the bottom of the lake. DANGIT!!! Now no scale and how was I getting this thing landed? I worked it back up along side of the boat, slid my hand into the gill plate and lifted the pike into the bottm of the boat, just like Al Linnder would, where she went wild thrashing around. lol Word of warning, pike gill plates and the gill area will poke numereous painfull holes in your hand and fingers. Anyways, I can't tell you how much she weighed since she threw my scale into the lake, but I know she is larger than the 12 pounder I have on my wall at home. I caught a few more bass on the Spook that were chasing shad. But once the heat of the bright sun started bearing down everything shut down.