Lure Fishing #51 – Winter Jig Fishing for Big Northern Pike

I was jig fishing from shore in a spillway in upstate New York during winter (late February, 2014).

I brought a jigging rod spooled with 6 lb mono and a variety of bucktail jigs and curly tail jigs (3″ or 4″ bodies, 1/8 oz. heads). I started out switching between jig colors and finally settled on using a black 4″ grub.

My friend was at the spillway too, and he got a sharp hit upstream from me and felt some solid weight before the fish fell off the hook, so I started fishing closer to him. Not too long after, I felt a tap and set the hook on what seemed like a monster walleye or a big northern pike. My friend went and got my net, but he slipped on the ice and hurt himself as he tried to net the big pike, so I netted it quick myself and then made sure he was okay. The pike was very fat (with eggs) and right around 39″ without stretching or laying it perfectly straight (because I was trying to rush while measuring to release the pike as soon as possible).

It may have been a monster pike or trophy pike by some standards, probably, and definitely at least a big pike (above average) by most fishermen’s standards I would think. I released the pike not too long after I caught it, and then my friend and I kept fishing until after dark, and he caught a decent walleye and big white sucker on a jig. One other interesting thing is that I hooked into what seemed like a monster northern pike pushing 40″ in the same spot along the river and on the same lure in another earlier video (which I took around a week before I took this lure fishing video), and I’m almost positive that it was the same northern pike due to the rarity of big northern pike around here.

This is one of many videos in the Lure Fishing series — watch others for triple-digit numbers of fish, trophy fish, the tips and techniques I pick up along the way, and more!