 Good morning. Good night. Sleep last night. Pretty mild conditions. We're looking at 14 degrees Fahrenheit. Got a light breeze kicking around out there. It's not too bad. Coffee brewing. About to put the breakfast on and get ready for the day. It's going to be a great day guys. Thanks for tuning in. We're going after some Monster Pike. That's what we're using for bait right there guys. Probably 6 inch Shiner there. That's a little bit smaller than the last couple I put on. And I want to show you a trick here. I like to hook it halfway about between the dorsal fin and the eye. And you kind of work it at an angle behind the scale. Because these scales are pretty hard on Shiners this size. You don't hit the spine but you get enough meat so it doesn't pull out. And then always check your hook tip after so there's not a scale on there from when you came out. Because that one scale will keep you enough hooked on a fish believe it or not. I'm going to tuck that up into my bait band so the Shiner shouldn't be able to set the flag off. Got a little bend on this one. Let's make sure that can trip pretty good. Sweet. We got four in. I haven't decided what I want to do with that fifth line yet. I'm not going to go much further because I'm starting to get a little bit thinner ice. I don't want to get down near the flow where there's less ice. So I feel safe out to this one. So I think I'm going to work my way back and maybe put a trap closer to the shack or in the other direction. Another thing I'll do is I'll straighten out all my leaders whether they're fluorocarbon or steel. The fluorocarbon ones you could put a little stretch into. The steel ones you can't stretch of course. But if it's got a little bit of a bend from being on the reel or just a bend from fighting the fish or something. I hook it onto something metal and give it a yank. This does a couple things. It'll straighten it. It'll lengthen it if it's fluoro. But it also tests your knots too and your hook. I've had a hook break doing this or a knot break. And I'd much rather break it pulling on the snowmobile than on a fish. We're fishing these pike pretty deep today. It's real early in the season so they haven't moved up yet to spawn. So what I like to do is I'll fish travel ways. I'll fish guts. I'll fish low sections of slews. And we kind of fish them a little bit like guys would fish a brown trout. We're up off the bottom. I think they travel the bottom and the midsection being the apex predator in most bodies of water. They travel wherever they want. But especially they're going to live near the bottom like most fish and their eyes are on the top of their head so they're looking up at all times. So I'll take it and put it about four to six foot off bottom. And then to let me know where I set in case either the bait trips or I catch a fish and want to reset. I just take a piece of a rubber band. I always have a pocket full of rubber bands because one they're cheap and two they're easy. And I tie it like that. And then if I want to slide it up or down to change the depth I'm fishing, it's pretty easy. Just grab that knot and just slide it. So that's going to tell me where it is. If I get a flag and come over and I can still see that rubber band I know it's just barely tripped or maybe the Shiner tripped it. My favorite bait for pike. You know there's a lot of guys like a lot of different things. I know suckers are really good bait too in certain lakes. But my favorite everywhere is a golden Shiner. They just seem to love these things. This one's probably over six inches. That's a good size. So it should deter a lot of the little guys from biting and hopefully we're just getting into big guys. Now when you go to hook these, don't just jab straight through because you might catch a scale. You can actually work that hook point in behind a scale by working it from back to front. Then go through. Don't get the spine but you'll see a lot of times when you come back through there's a scale on your hook point. Make sure you get that off because believe it or not that one scale could prevent that hook from driving home and setting on that fish. Those scales are like iron. So this will be our shallowest set right there. We're probably about 15 foot down in about 20 foot of water. The other ones are in closer to 24, 26 foot of water and we're fishing those a lot closer to 20 foot down from the surface. I tuck my line. I twist it back before I set the reel and I'll tuck it into a rubber band. Like a big bait keeper or rubber band on the bottom of my trap. So that way the bait can't just set off my flag because once you start getting into shiners about that size, they have a lot of power. So you put it back in like that. So now the shiners only pulling against the rubber band. He's not pulling against my reel and my tripping mechanism. These are Heritage Laker traps. They're also made in Maine. I fish these and I fish jack traps. I like them both. They're totally different. Totally different designs. But they both work great and they both have advantages. I take a little bit more time when I'm setting for pike because I just really want to catch a giant and one little mistake could cost you a giant. Whereas if you're fishing for crappy or bass or trout, you can make a hundred mistakes and still catch that fish. But when you're going for big pike, one little mistake, one wrong loop, one anything could cost you the fish of a lifetime. Where's that? We got five in and we're fishing. I could see three of them right now. I'm going to have to go back there to see the ones around the corner. Typically, I don't catch giant pike early. I think one day with my buddy Curtis, we caught an 18. Yeah, he got his PB that day. It was an 18-2 and it was like first set. I think it was second trap, maybe your third trap we were putting in. But for the most part, all of my big fish and the double digits come about mid-morning anytime between like 9 and 11. And then it's really dependent on the weather for later in the day and the time of season. I never hit them really at dark. We're close to dark in that last hour. But I'll hit them from like one to three a lot of times too. I'll hit a giant. So we're in, we're set, and now we're fishing. And to be even more efficient, a lot of times I'll move my traps around. I'll set a little different. I'll drill other holes, have them ready. I will use the electronics and look for edges or humps or weed beds or bait pods and then move a trap over to it. So that's what we're going to do for the rest of the morning and also get a couple jig rods ready in case we want to try to jig some of these big pike. Okay guys, I am all set up out there. I'm going to come back in the shack and keep an eye on the traps, but drink a little bit of coffee, work on some tackle, get some jig rods ready and the electronics ready and go out there and poke around and start to have a little bit more fun. Hopefully we get a high flyer here pretty soon. I never really count on them early, but mid-morning is pretty good for pike, so we'll shoot for it then. Current temperature is 11 degrees out there. It actually got a little bit colder, but with no wind it really feels nice. I mean, wind is brutal. Wind rips through you. I'd rather have five below zero and no wind and 30 degrees and 30 mile an hour wind. Sure, a lot of you guys are the same way. Alright, let's take a look around with a live scope, look at some depths, look at some of these other holes, look for weed beds, drop off, schools of bait. I got this on Forward View right here and man, you could see that about 40 to 50 foot away there's a wicked school of crappy out there. I'm going to turn it back, nothing around here, nothing in this area. Pretty well flat, but it definitely drops off hard. It gets to about 35 foot deep and those crappie are in about 25 foot deep, about 40 foot away and then nothing. So if I want I could walk that way about 40, 45 feet and get into a school of crappy. Alright guys, we got a flag. We got a flag here fellas. He's off to the side. Feels pretty good. Definitely something there. He's not fighting too hard yet. Doesn't feel huge yet, but that doesn't mean anything. There's some head shakes, not very big. Took out a lot of line. He's up high and now he's coming right at me. They'll do that. Don't let that fool you. Try to keep up with them when they do that. Good line control here. It's a pike. I didn't get a good look at him. It's a pike for sure. Pretty good head on him. I forgot I got steel. I'm used to using fluoro. I could probably just yard him in. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yes. Oh baby. Nice. Alright, look at that one guys. I think we hit our double digit on the very first one. Sweet. There he is. Big ol' fat pike. Got it pretty good. I'm going to get my catch bag out and get that hook out and get a weight on him. Get him back in the water. Alright, let's get that hook out. Put the spreaders. Don't do anything to him. Just like that. Alright. We think he goes guys. He's 10, 8. There we're zeroed in. Oh, we made double digits. 10.09. 10.09. Sweet. Alright, let's get him back down there so he can grow to get bigger. He is 34, 34 inches. There he is guys. Big ol' bruiser. Good way to start the morning right there. It's about 9 o'clock. Just what I was saying. Get him early. We're going to get him back. Nice. Good release. Yes. That's freaking awesome. That one was deep. That was 35 foot of water. Got another shiner here. This one's a little bit smaller. He's probably 5 to 6 inches. Going to put that 5-out Gamakatsu Octopus right through the back of him. And we're going to run him back down right to my mark. My rubber band that I had tied off. Oh, looks like I lost my weight. Those weights I'm running are junk. We're not allowed to use lead anymore in Maine. So we got to use these steel ones and the rubbers in them are no good. Got a broken rubber. Nobody likes a broken rubber. They got rubber inside of steel and you're supposed to pull the two tabs and twist them to get the line in there. But the rubber seemed to break every time I do that. Now that one worked. Cool. Let's get him down. A lot of ice on the line because of how cold it is. Just, if that ever happens, just take your thumbnail and get that ice off there so there's not as much drag when that fish is swimming away with that bait. If he feels all that drag on there, he will drop it. You know, that's something that people don't realize about pike because they're so big and teethy and they look aggressive but they're pretty smart fish. If they feel any resistance, they will drop it. What are you doing, you old goat? Yeah, he's not very big. Oh, he just let it go. I don't even know if it was a pike. Let's see if it's chewed. That's a big Shiner right there. Oh, he's chewed hard. He's got a big old gash. Could have been a pickerel. We'll drop that down. It won't be long. Guys, I'm going here by my good buddy Wayne. Now Wayne, if you don't know him, he is probably the premier pan fisherman in the entire state of Maine. When I need pan fishing advice or to know what's going on or what to use, I call Wayne and Wayne usually fixes me right up. But there's nobody that I know that's better at the crappie and the pan fish than Wayne. We're going to probably shoot a video with him later in the year and he's out here to catch some pan fish so we might even shoot a video today with him. Right, Wayne? Yeah, we'd be great. Pretty sure we got a small pike here messing with me. He hit it again while I was standing right there. He's not there. He might be there. Yeah, he's there. He's real small. Oh, got a little bigger. Yeah, I don't think he's very big. Nope, camera handle. Those are not the ones you want eating your big bait. I think I'll be able to save that. Whoa, that hit me right in the face. Got another bite. That whacked me right in the cheek. That stung a little bit. Hopefully this one's a little bigger. Might be a little bigger. I haven't even let that other one go yet. Ah, he's not much bigger. Dang it. We got a two for going. About as close to a double as you can get on a trap. Let's get a double release. Oh, he kicked him right in the face. Nice. Whoo! That whacked me right in the face. I guess I whacked him too, so we're even. The flag come up as I was just getting ready to set it. Got me in the cheek. I got one more China on me. Pike are starting to get active. It's probably a little bit before 10 o'clock. That's usually prime time. Is that 10 to 11 for big ones? You got two on you? Yeah. Yeah. A big one on the bottom. Wow. What the heck is that on the bottom? I don't think it's a perch. No. He's coming over to me. Oh, he's coming to you hard. He liked yours. He's on you. Did he bite? No. He's still under you. I just did it because he was right there. He's still there on you. This is better than catching them little... That's a big perch there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, this is way better than catching them crappy. Yeah. Just had to have the balls come out of here. I guess that's become my motto after so many years. If you don't go, you won't know. That's true. And this type of what I do and what you're doing, you can't ask Joe because you're the only one that does it. Yeah. You know? It's so expensive to go fishing anymore. Yeah. Just the gas. Yeah. You've been in the last three weeks what you've spent for gas. I know it. For two weeks. Awful. Yeah, 13 inches. 13. That's a good yellow. Yeah. And there's a 12-incher there. But my gosh, that thing is three and a half inches. Yeah. It's just... Good ones, Wayne. Oh, my, yeah. Here's a good one, Wayne. That's a 12-incher. Boy, people dream of those. I know it. We're so spoiled in Maine. I know it. Everybody just leaves these on the ice in Maine. No, I leave them on the ice for the Eagles, which... I'm going to eat this guy. They're going to eat. Oh, my. Look at that. They're good eating. I'll eat them. Wow, look at the beauty of that. It's a seven striper. Seven striper, just like you get up in Canada. There you go. Yeah, wow. I'll put him down. You'll catch another one. Yeah, I will. Thank you. He was aggressive. Man, they... We still got fish down there. Those 12s hit hard. You got another one on me. Oh, he had it, but he didn't. He didn't have the hook. Oh, I got one. Two of them. I got some jumbos over here, Wayne. I got them. I got almost a jumbo here. I don't think this is a jumbo, but it's a good one. Yeah, I got some bigger ones over here. They're just trying to get past the little guys first. Got them. Oh, something screwed up. I'm going to have to hand line them. Oh, don't you hate that? Yeah. Another big one. Oh, God, he might be bigger than the last one. Oh, my. Yeah. Oh, look at that, Joe. Another big one. Wow. Isn't that awesome? That's a 13. I can see from here. That's huge. I'm supposed to be pike fishing, you know. But it's hard to resist these jumbo 13 and bigger inch yellows. You want to talk about good eating. People have no idea how good they are. Oh, it looks like I got a good one on the bottom. I try to get down to them. Really? Oh, I got a good one coming up. Good one. Good one. Real good one. Man, these are good. He wasn't even the biggest of the two. Look at that jumbo. Man, they're right full of eggs, probably. Super fat. There was a bigger one with it. Look at the size of these, Wayne. These are over 12. There's one good one and one little guy on the screen. The little guy's coming in hot. Of course, here's the little guy flying in on me. I'll just catch him. We'll put him in your bucket. I'll catch these. Brain them. That'll be the end of those three. That's over 36 inches in three fish, Wayne. Those are some good ones, aren't they? My, look at that. Isn't that amazing? You're not going to eat them, are you? Yeah. Oh, my God. He's only 13 and three-quarter inches. He's just a 14. Oh, my. This isn't even my best. That's a 13. 13, 14, and I got a big one coming on the screen if you'll keep coming. Another 13. 13, so 40 inches in three fish. Oh, my. How about that? I had a big one on the screen, but we might have another pickerel on us. Sometimes it pays to explore, doesn't it? Oh, yeah. I'm wondering if this goes all the way into the point. Well, it's like safe. There's only one way to know. Yeah. There's nobody's going to tell you. Yeah, you're right. It's off to the side, but not moving. If it's there, it's small. Oh, no. It's not small. There's one there. I can't tell if he's big or small yet. He's being pretty agreeable right now. Oh, it's not bad. It's not bad. I don't think he's a double-digit. That's why you lay your line out nice. Now he knows he's hooked. Pretty decent pike here. He's no mobster, but he's got a little weight. No giant, but not bad. He's over four pounds, probably maybe pushing five. Hook popped right out. Long one. Ready? Give that to us. Woohoo. I love fishing and I love pike fishing. Oh, I can't wait till a big one bites, but those are fun in between. All right, guys, it's a little afternoon and it's been pretty slow. When you're out here trophy hunting or going for big pike, it can be slow sometimes, especially if you're using big bait and fishing pretty deep. It's not like you're going to get a lot of action or a lot of flags. I've been pretty blessed today with, let's see, I've got four fish so far and probably about six or seven flags. I had to once strip my bait and a couple other just knocked the bait around a little bit. Pretty busy, but it's been slow for like the last hour and I'm trying to stay awake because it's like, it's just such a beautiful day. There's no wind. I'm used to like getting my teeth kicked in by the weather. And this has been pretty nice. So I'm trying to stay awake. So I'm also working hard to catch some more fish. So some of the traps that haven't done anything all day, haven't had any action. I've already gone up or down with those for depth. So now I'm going around with the live scope and I'm punching new holes and really trying to pinpoint where the channels are or breaks or humps or even underwater weed beds. And then I'm moving traps to those. So that's what I'm doing right now. And hopefully it pays off in the long run. Yeah, that's pretty sweet right there. We're on an edge. I'll show you guys what I'm looking at. All right. So this is on forward looking mode right now. I'm going to spin this and you can see. So I'm spinning it and I'm pointing out towards the main body of water. And it's dropping off. You can see a couple fish right there or crappy. And it drops off pretty good down, you know, almost 40 foot about 40 foot away. It gets down over 35 foot, which is where I actually caught those bike. Right where we're sitting is about 23 foot of water. There's some junk and fish on the bottom there. And as I roll it in, you could actually look and 60 feet away. It comes up to pretty much nothing with some nice weeds and stuff on the edge. So there's a pot of bait right there. So we're pretty much, we're pretty close to being on the edge. We're at the zero mark on the left. I mean, I could move in. Yeah, I'd call. That shows you the contour change. I call this really close to hitting the edge. So I'm going to move a trap here and just see if there's anything that's working that edge along this, this weed line and along this drop off edge. And we're going to set right at the bottom, right where it meets the plateau. All right, he's looking good. There's one there. I don't know if he's eating it yet. Let's let that guy eat just in case he's big. Yeah, he's there. Big head shakes. Not a lot of weight, but pretty good head shakes. Coming in kind of dead weight. Not very big yet. All right. Fat one. Nice. Look at that. The hook popped right out. How about the shiny? That's like a four pounder probably. Pretty one. Healthy. I love it. Well, let's pick up time. I hate this part of the day. I wish it was longer, but it was an awesome day. Five pike ice. Five pike released probably had about eight flags, I think, with big bait. So that's eight times getting really excited and having opportunities of giants. Can't ask for a lot more than that. One double digit, which was pretty awesome. Let's see if we can make that a streak. Now on to the fun stuff, the camping and the eating. And we got some filet in to do. I ended up keeping like seven or eight. Little crappies to eat. They're probably not little for this place. They don't get really big here for some reason. I think there's just too darn many of them. And I kept three really big yellow perch. You know, 14 and a couple 13 inches, I think. For you guys in Maine, don't knock it till you try it. There's a stigma in Maine that is just unbelievable that yellow perch are terrible for some reason. I don't know what it is if people maybe were keeping them out of stagnant ponds and really old fish full of worms or mud. I really don't know. But people out of state, if you told them how many guys in Maine catch yellow perch and just throw them on the ice and leave them for the Eagles, their heads would explode because in other states it's a delicacy and there's people making a lot of money catching yellow perch and fileting yellow perch and guiding for yellow perch. So, you know, growing up in Maine, I kind of thought the same thing that only white perch were good. That might be why people don't think the yellows are good is because the whites are just so darn good. They really are incredible. They're firm and sweet. As long as you're not fishing a pond that's stagnant and muddy and catching old yellows that are full of worms and you could cook the worms down too. Don't worry too much about them. But yeah, don't knock it till you try it, guys. It's really good. I'm going to have a couple of those for dinner tonight and a couple of those crappie and then some of those crappie are going to go home. I had some people reach out from town back home that said they've never tried it and they'd like to try it. I'd never turned anybody down for that. I brought in all my traps and the jig rods. I got to do a little work on the jig rods, change some line up and get that right. And the traps are in here just so they don't freeze up overnight outside and they'll be ready to go for the morning. How it goes for pike fishing. I could go back to the same holes that I fished today and whack them tomorrow. You never know if that 20 pounder swam in, ate itself a nice 12 inch crappie right before it saw my Shiner and wasn't hungry. That's just how fishing goes. So tomorrow maybe that 20 pounder will be hungry. Super stoked. I got a double digit pike. First pike of the year. First time out. I mean, that's awesome. It was just barely double digits. 10.05 I think it was. But it gave me an awesome fight and just was so much fun to catch. I got a double digit pike. And then ended up with five today, almost a double which is weird with using one line because I hadn't released the one yet. And as I was dropping the other one hit, you guys saw that. So I got two out of that hole and then the other three all came out of the same exact hole. And they were in the range of like 30 to 35 foot deep. So none of the shallower holes did any good today. And I did move around a bunch and just kind of just seemed like an off day even though it was such a great day. So looking forward to tomorrow trying some new water and going after another double digit. All right, we got a pile of fillets. I'm going to take the remains out back and make a nice pile for the coyotes. All right, we'll see if the coyotes come tonight and clean that up. I got room for one piece of crappy in there. Okay, dinner looks pretty fantastic. I got a fish fry of almost all yellow perch. I threw a piece of crappy in there just for comparison's sake. And because there was a little tiny bit of room left in the pan so I threw a small piece of crappy in there. I'm eating that fish tonight and I got a little bowl of mashed taters to line the stomach and going to drive all that into me. So that way I have a good night's sleep and plenty of energy for tomorrow and go chase some more pike. Might switch gears and catch some more of those jumbos for you and focus on getting a good video for that too. I haven't decided yet but I think I'm going to go after a pike pretty high tomorrow. Holy cow, that filled the void pretty good. What a meal that was. Yeah, yellow perch are just, they're fantastic. I know you put that batter on them and some red hot sauce and definitely changes the taste a little bit. It's good, you can still taste it right through. Got a nice firm texture to it. It's a little bit firmer than crappy if that's what you're after and I think it's a little sweeter and crappy too. I don't know what it is about maybe when you're at deer camp or hunting camp or fishing camp like this or just out camping the food just seems to always taste better. I don't know why you're not cooking it on as good a controlled top as you are if you are home in your own kitchen or anything but seems to always taste better so that was a heck of a meal there's nothing like just unzipping that zipper right there and walking right out into the grocery store and getting fresh fish or fresh food it's pretty outstanding I hope you guys enjoy that too and leave a comment telling where food tastes better for you if it is at hunting camp or at fishing camp or while you're ice fishing I don't know if it's just me that's like that or if everybody's like that Well that's going to do it for day one guys thanks for tuning in episode 2 day 2 starts tomorrow Once his head starts you can flop him right on the ice go ahead That's a good one Oh yeah That's a big enough one Look at that one guys Alright Alright, now bring him up Yes sir New PB Yes sir Nice 15 easy I'm on like seriously 20 inch run right now Grab it grab it grab it Get him get him boys get him He's only 20 30 40 He's 40 inches 20 inches around I'm almost out of breath I'm so excited with this They're terrifying They're terrifying