Winter Fishing For River Monsters!

Isn't that a beautiful sight? We've got open water. How's it going everyone? I'm back again. I'm out here in North Dakota today. It's the end of February and I'm excited. It's been a couple months since I've had the kayak out. It's just been too cold up here lately, especially the last few weeks. It's been negative 10, negative 20 degrees. So I've been pretty much sitting at home editing footage from last summer. I think I confused a few people into thinking it was still nice and lush and green looking up here in North Dakota, but no, this is actually what it looks like up here in the winter. So I've been just itching to get back out here on the open water and well, today's the day. It's supposed to be a beautiful day out here. I think the temp is supposed to get up a couple degrees above freezing. The sun is shining, not much wind. Should be a perfect day to hit the river. I think the first order of business is going to be to chop away some of the shoreline ice here. So I've got a spot to launch. I'm going to go up and grab my spud stick and we'll get to chopping. That was some thick ice. All right, I got the kayak all loaded up. Let's get out there and see if we can catch some fish. Iceberg. I tell you what, it was a little bit of work chopping through that ice. That's about six inches of ice there. I could have probably just launched off the edge of it, but it does get a little bit thinner the farther out you go from shore. So I figured it'd be better safe than sorry. Off we go. I made it up here to the first little deep hole on this shallow stretch of river. We're going to try for some pike out here again today. Water temp is probably about 34 degrees right now, so I think pike and maybe musky are going to be the most likely to be active out here. We do have a lot of walleye on this stretch of river too, but they're kind of tough to get unless you bring some live bait out here. So I figured today I'd stick with lures. It's been a couple months since I've had the kayak out, so I'm just hoping for some pike excitement today. One of these days I'll have to bring some minnows out here though and try for some walleye. There are some big ones in this river. So I'm going to start out with the Savage Gear 4-play swim bait. This is the six and a half inch version. I've got the golden shiner color. A lot of times those bigger pike are up here chasing the smaller walleye around, so that gold color kind of looks like a little walleye. I figured I'd start out with that swim bait today. That thing seemed to work pretty well in the fall when the water was cold. I do have a jig tight on my other rod, but there's just so much algae and muck on the bottom right now. I think if I tried to drag that jig across the bottom, I'd be cleaning muck off of it every cast. I launched right back around the bend over there. I did work my way up to the little dam back there behind me. I did see one real nice pike sitting right up here ahead of me. That's probably the deepest water up here in this little spot. You can see it's maybe three feet deep right here. I think it gets to about five or six feet deep. Maybe a cast length ahead of me. There's a fish chasing that lure. I can't tell if he's still chasing it. It's kind of right in the glare up here in front of me. Yeah, there was something chasing it over there though. We're gonna throw it back over there again. I don't know. I have been seeing a bunch of little perch swimming around up here. I do have a perch pattern one of those lures too. I might have to switch over to that one. There we go. Brand new out of the package. Never been thrown. We'll see if we can put some bite marks on that one. I love coming out here to the river this time of year. The scenery is so beautiful with the snow-covered banks. It's so quiet out here right now. I mean, don't get me wrong. I love the sounds of the birds chirping and the bugs buzzing in the summertime, but just something about that winter peacefulness. It's relaxing. I just need a big pike to come smash that lure to get my heart rate back up. I've seen a couple little ones up here, but it is pretty shallow. I'll give it another half hour or so in this little area and then I'll probably work my way downstream and try one of the other deep holes down there. It gets a little bit deeper the farther down we go. There are some fish up here. They just don't seem too aggressive. I got a little pike sitting right up there in front of me. I think he's just watching me up there. I put my lure right in front of him a few times, but he didn't show much interest. Well, it is a little bit breezy out here once I got out of that sheltered little area where I started out today. I gave it a little bit longer at that spot. Didn't really have much action, so I decided it was time to keep moving along. Starting to get a little bit deeper here. It's looking kind of fishy. The wind is a little bit rough. I'll probably work my way through this little area and then turn around and try to get this wind to my back because hopefully it's not destroying my audio recording. Plus, if I try to really whip a cast into that wind, well, I think it's probably best to not try that. Also, I'm going to be picking up part of Bird's Nest for about 15 minutes. We'll go nice, short, easy casts. We've got fish up here. Very first cast at this spot. What is this, pike or muskie? Looks like a nice pike. Oh yeah, that's a big pike. Come on over here. Oh my gosh. Wow, look at this pike. All right, I got my swim bait back from that fish. Let's take a quick look at him. Man, what a monster of a pike. I'll tell you what, that's the kind of fish that turns a slow day into an awesome day. If that's the only one I catch today, it was well worth the drive out here. Geez, that is a beast. All right, very first cast over here. I got blasted. Let's see if we can go two for two here. I would be highly surprised if we went two for two, but I don't know. Sometimes you get a little flurry like that. Oh, there's another one. Are you kidding me? Fish right there. I think that one might be a muskie. No, it's another pike. Oh yeah, the big pike are active over here. That one might be even bigger than that last one. Oh my gosh, look at that thing. Geez, two casts in a row, two giant pike. I cannot believe that. Look where he's got that lure. Yeah, look at that. He absolutely choked that lure. My gosh, I cannot believe that just happened. Two casts in a row, two monster pike. Geez, that one absolutely crushed that swim bait. All right, he's bleeding a little bit. I'm gonna get him back in the water. All right, he swam off nice and healthy. I do like to see that. Yeah, I'm glad I decided to come down here and try this spot. Oh man, I just got to sit here and let the adrenaline leave my blood for a minute or two before I throw another cast. I'm just shaking, my hands are frozen, bleeding a little bit there. Yeah, that's just part of pike fishing. Late February, out here on the river. Yeah, it's been an awesome day out here so far. I would have been happy just getting out here on some open water again, but those two big pike were just the icing on the cake. I was hoping we might have found a pile of giant pike up here. I did work my way up about 100 yards since I caught those last two. I've caught a couple of little ones, but not much else. Might have just been a pair of big pike hanging out back there together. I worked my way down here to the far end of this deeper area. It does start getting shallower back here behind me, so I got myself turned around. I've got my power pole dropped back there with the wind coming from behind me. We'll try working our way back through this area and see if we can pick up any more pike. I caught those two giant ones kind of right up at the start up there where it starts getting deeper, and then I got, I don't know, three or four little ones between there and where I'm sitting here now. I'll give you guys a quick look at what I'm using here before we get back to fishing. So I've got the six and a quarter inch Savage Gear four play swim bait in the perch color, and I'm throwing that on my six foot eight medium heavy fast action St. Croix Legend Tournament rod. I've got a Quantum Vapor reel with 30 pound Power Pro Super Slick V2 line, and then I do have a short steel leader in front of that lure. I believe that's an 18 pound steel leader. That's just to prevent those pike from biting me off. It's been a productive afternoon out here so far. Let's get that lure back out there and we'll see if we can catch any more. I just saw something swim up right up here. That was awesome. I saw him chase that lure back. I thought he got a little bit too close and he wasn't gonna take it. Nope, he nailed it pretty much right underneath me. Oh, that was cool. He definitely wanted that little perch swim bait. I got him unhooked. There's another one on that Savage Gear swim bait. That's exactly why I throw that lure. I mean, that thing is realistic enough that this fish came up and smashed it with me sitting about three feet away from him. That's a nice little pike. Nowhere near the biggest one of the day, but that is always awesome when you get to watch the fish come up and eat your lure. Fantastic day out here on the river. Well, I did finish working my way through this little area. Not much action the last 45 minutes, so I think it's about that time for me to paddle back to my truck and call it a day. It has been an awesome day out here today. We've got those two monster pike. I got maybe a half dozen smaller ones too. I'm not sure how many of those I'll put in the video, but I did have that one chase the lure back and hit it right next to me. It's always awesome when that happens. Really couldn't ask for a much better day than that for a winter trip out here to the river. I had a blast. I hope you guys enjoyed it too. Thanks for coming along with me again. I'll see you next time.