Minipi Camps Web Log
Big fish eat little fish…but there are no little fish at Minipi.
Ron and I were cruising around the entrance to Shisler’s Cove on Minipi Lake one afternoon when we saw a rise just in front of a pile of rocks near shore. We’d seen a few green drakes on the water and I had tied a big drake on my # 8. So I was set when the fish rose again, this time to the left of his first rise. I laid the fly about four feet in front of him. He took immediately and ran to the left out and away from the boat. Then he changed direction and cut an arc, out about 30 feet now, toward the center of the lake. “Three pounder, I’d say.” Ron agreed. “Maybe more.” Then the fish made a powerful surged and started taking line. Now he was maybe about 75 feet from the boat.
“Damn, he’s fighting hard. What’s wrong here. Did I foul hook him?” “No, that was a clean hook up,” said Ron. “But look at this, I can’t move him. Can’t steer him in. What’s going on.”
Finally, after several minutes more of this tug of war, I started to get back some line. But he surged again, another unbelievably powerful surge and he retook the line I’d gained.
I had thumbed the stop watch button on my Casio after the first surge. Now I could see that he’d been on for 12 minutes. I lowered the rod parallel to the water, one hand on the corks, the other just below the first ferrule, and pivoted away from the fish like you do with a tarpon. Down and dirty. He started to yield again. Using this two-handed sideways pump-and-reel technique, after another 5 or 6 minutes, I had him off the side of the boat about 8 feet out.
That’s when he swirled up to the surface. And that’s when my knees started knocking. “He” was a gigantic great northern pike and in his croc-sized mouth, sideways, he held my 3 pound Brook trout. I’d been playing that pike on the hook in the trout’s jaw! I heaved him up to within three feet of the boat. “Net him, Ron. Jeez, net the b_____d! He’s the biggest fish I’ve ever hooked in fresh water. “Can’t doer,” said Ron, “he’s too damn big for the net.” And he held the net alongside the wallowing pike to prove it.
We were now about 50 feet out from where I’d hooked the brookie and Ron’s plan was to use the paddle to ease the boat into shore, jump out, and kick the monster up among the rocks. Twenty seven minutes on the Casio now. And, as the bow of the boat hit the rocks, the big pike released the trout and disappeared into Shisler’s Cove with a slap of his tail. The trout was stone dead.
When we got back to camp, Ron laid a tape across the bloody, horse-shoe shaped set ot tooth marks on his body. They were seven and a half inches wide. That pike had looked as long as I am tall. A regular crocodile. Ron estimated that he weighed 25 to 27 pounds. The brookie weighed 3.5 pounds.
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