The big 1.5 square miles dyke enclosed marshes at Point Mouillie are difficult kayak fishing in any kind of wind. Today was forecast to be light winds but here up against Lake Erie it is always windier than expected. I started off in the lee shelter of the long dyke for some easy fishing in a spot that has fewer fish, but the bass were definately hitting big topwater poppers.
In spite of 40lb bite leader, a Pike cut me off early. Typical big blow up followed by nothing but slack on the hook set. No force at all, he can't possibly be hooked, a few seconds later the White Marabou Banger bobbed back to the surface. I retrieved it but tied on a slightly fuller 3/0 Chartreuse Marabou Banger.
I headed over to the Phragmites, using what shelter they provided to hunt for bigger bass there.
This is a long slender well formed and colored fish. I was thinking, I bet he has some impressive girl lady friends. But I got nothing in the channels were I had hooked bass and lots of pike including a huge one last week.
The mid afternoon slump had set in and I paddled back into the cat tail Islands were I have not fished much to date. I was only getting small ones but was surprised to get these hogs.
At one point the wind died down and I started taking video of my poppers getting blown up. I deleted footage with little action to stay withing limited storage. Some of the bass stills here are meant to cap off footage that was lost or didn't show up well in bad light or riffled water.
It is common for Bluegills to harass my poppers when I dead stick them at the end of the retrieve, hopping to get the occasional follower to hit. I hooked this one in the back side of his face. Earlier a big pike had slow rolled fight through my popper without eating it. Very unusual, when they hit, it is at high speed and extremely violent. I thought that pike may have been after some following smaller fish.
Only about 2 feet of this pike is showing in the photo. This may me the longest pike I've hooked here but the one I lost last week looked thicker.
I finished with about 8 pike landed, mostly small to medium small. I had another bite off after I had fought a pike hard for a few seconds. I didn't expect to get that popper back but it reappeared back on the surface some distance down wind. I retied with a long tailed, very flashy 3/0 White Marabou Banger for the late evening light.
