Unbelievable DRIVE-TO Canadian Pike Fishing

We are back in the north. We're still in the north. Just came off a sweet trip to Cranberry Portage. Clay vs Jay episode 3. If you've not seen it, I'll link it below. But now we are on a little bit of a bigger lake. A really, really big lake. Right behind us through the woods is Cormorant Lake. It is a beast and it's got big fish and it gets overlooked a lot. I think there's a couple reasons. It's just a lot of people stop at Clearwater when they're fishing, which is Cormorant might not have lake trout as big, but it has really big pike. It has some great walleye fishing and it's a lake that I've spent a very, very minimal amount of time on. We're at Simon Abyss Wayside Park and they're hosting us for the next couple days. I got one goal and that is to get my dad on his first master angler pike. He's been asking me for years. He said, I want to catch a master angler pike. 41 inch pike. That is the goal and we're going to do it. Guys, we made it out here thanks to James Nabis, owner of Simon Abyss Lodge. He gave us a route out. There are some rocks to watch out for. If someone's going to give you the route, take it. This is a big lake. It's kind of intimidating. I'm going to try to help break down what to look for when you're looking for pike. It's late summer. Yeah, we're looking for weeds. I used to guide. I actually probably guided for pike more than anything else. My favorite time to guide for pike was late season. It's like middle of August, end of August. You don't catch as many fish. This isn't springtime fishing. They're not shallow. You're not safe fishing them. You're looking for that thick green cabbage. Sometimes they'll use rocks, but more often than not, cabbage is the deal. Yeah, we're going to use electronics and we're going to find some weeds and kind of what areas to look for. We're going to troll to do that for now. We're going to start trolling around. I know this is a general area. There should be some weed beds, but we're going to try to pick it apart a little more, figure where the edges are and maybe catch a fish in the process. So we've got a couple of crankbaits on. We'll go more in depth into gear, but for now we're going to look for the good stuff. Oh yeah. He's on. First pike. I see it. It's a baby. It's going to go to the boat early. Nice pike, dad. There you go. Yeah, right. 41. Okay. Get him back. He's loose. Snake. Show me, show me the bait. Custom made in Sweden by our buddy Hugo. Hugo. Hugo. I think you pronounce Hulin. Hulin baits. We got a theme going on and we got Swedish baits. I'm using headbanger. I've used their stuff before. Shot some promo stuff for them. Awesome. Super unique baits. I'm using the headbanger shad. I think this is like a six and a half or seven inch. Dad's using the Hulin crankbait and yeah, we'll see if these Swedish pike lures can catch some big Manitoban pike. And that was not a big one, but we're on the board. All right. So we caught a couple of little ones. Nothing great, but I think we've located some fish. I have a pretty good vibe on how the weed bed lays out now. So I've set a bunch of way points on my graph and we're going to cast. My dad is asking, well, it doesn't trolling work just as well. Yeah, trolling does work really well, but it's kind of boring when you can catch them casting. So we're going to try to catch them casting. Not that we won't troll if we don't need to. This lake has a lot of weed beds, so we're not going to spend too long. We're going to try to find an active weed bed because not all weed beds are created equal and we've got to kind of take an advantage because today is nice weather. Tomorrow is supposed to be just horrendous, just absolutely horrendous. So we might be like stuck in the cabin tomorrow. So we're going to make the most of today and hopefully just get his master right away. Ooh, that looks good, Dad. No, that's better. That's a lot better. That fish just crushed you. They're getting bigger. Everyone's getting bigger. Yeah, they are. All right. Show me, Dad. Dad's upgrading. Yeah. Nice. Everyone a bit bigger. At this rate, we're going to hit 50 inches. Gone. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Number one thing you need if you want to target big pike is a proper net. This might be a little overkill. This is the Big Kahuna. It's a musky net, but oh, barely hooked. Nice. But now you have a nice cradle for the fish to hang out and he can chill. So we've got the fish unhooked. We're going minimal 30 seconds in and out. Measure them. You got to have your gear ready. Cormorant Lake, Simon Abyss, Wayside Park. And we're on the board. That's pretty good. 37, 37 incher. All right. This guy's going right back in the water. There she goes. Yeah. Oh, that's big. That's big. That's big. Oh, Dad, this might be it. This might be it. We got to keep him out of the motor. That's a big fish. Okay, get him, get to the front, over the front, over the motor. Oh, get that rod lower. Yeah. This is it, Dad. This is it. I don't know. I think so. He's pretty long. Oh, he's going to be close. Oh yeah. Oh, she's barely hooked. Oh, oh, Dad, that's going to be darn close. Showing me. All right. Oh, Dad. I don't know. That's got to be, that's got to be close. Can't throw him on the bump board. You got the head touching? Yeah. Man, that's just such a fat fish. Doesn't even matter. 40 incher. Nothing wrong with that. All right. And they just kept. Let's, let's get it. Let's get that one back in. They're getting bigger. Every fish is getting bigger. There she goes. This is good. We've had five fish and everyone has gotten bigger. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's good. We're just spot locked here. So I'm going to show you how we map this out. That's where we trolled. You can see on auto chart here and we put way points on the weeds, wherever we saw them. So we see, we found a little strip of weeds. We trolled it, marked out our spot. Now we've been spot locking, driving up a little bit, spot locking, casting, and every fish is getting bigger. So this is great. There is a storm rolling into more, that might be why they're feeding heavily right now, but 3740 back-to-back that was like less than five minutes apart. So good. Oh my goodness, dad, what is going on? Real, real, real. Wow. They're just hitting on. They're just crushing it. Yeah. Look at this. He's going to jump. He's going to jump. I got a feeling. He's going to jump. Oh, perfect. He's off. That's what I want. I didn't want to deal with that one. So if you do know where the weeds are in a spot, it's great to start a little further away and cast into them rather than just to arrive right onto the middle of weeds. In this case, we'd found the weeds earlier, so we left some waypoints and then came back. So I mean, yeah, the next time you come back, if you happen to blow over at the first time, you'll be prepared the next time. Oh, oh wow. Wow. Wow. I don't know what we got, but that just destroyed me. Oh, this might be big. Hey, get ready. I don't know. She might just be a surprise. No, that's, that's pretty big. Yup. Yup. Yup. Yup. Yup. Oh, that was close. That was close. All right, man. We are having a good start to our trip. Oh, they're fat. They're fat fall fish. Yeah. 38, 37, 38, 40. I just lost a bigger one. This is ridiculous. Doing real well. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. I don't want to get too hung up on the master angler thing, but we did set a goal for ourselves. You're on? Rod? Yeah. Get a bend in that rod. Could this be it? It looks heavy. Oh, man. Dad's on the board again. Probably like a 37-incher. Nice. Big, fat Cormorant Pike. Okay. I'll slide the net over. Let's get it right back here. There he goes. All right. We're going to Bay number three, looking for weeds. I'm going to show you what they look like on the graph. I mean, it's, it's kind of obvious, but it kind of helps to know what you look for. And there, and there are different types of weeds. There are the tall ones that shoot up to the top that are big and beautiful. And sometimes there's like some short, short grass, short weeds that only come up like a foot or two. And I think that's the stuff that it like really gets overlooked. I remember up at the lodge I worked at, if you But we're going to look at the down imaging. There's, yeah, there's the shallow weeds. That's, that's enough to hold fish, even though it's only coming a foot or two up in 10 feet of water, that can work. We're going to keep cruising here. That's the start of it. I don't really want to go and blow into it, but that's, you know, getting a couple of feet higher off the bottom. We're, we're going to put in the trilling motor and we're going to catch some fish. We probably only got like a spot or two left today. It's it's getting dark. It's almost 637 and it's a bit of a ride back. It's going to be, it's going to be rough. It's a big lake. You got to watch the winds, got to be safe about it, but time for some pike. We are headed back to cook some burgers at the cabin. This is not the end of the trip, but I mean, that's some pretty good pike fishing. What day is it dad? Uh, if this is the 25th, then it must be Tuesday. Day two is what I was looking for. It is day two at Simon Abyss Wasteland Park and the weather is completely nasty. I don't know what happened. It was summertime just a couple of days ago and now it's, it's full on fall, which means a lot of wind, typically a lot of rain, but also a lot of big fish. So we're going out. We had a little bit of a later start. It's, uh, it's blowing, it's misting. We're going to do our absolute best to film. Might be some GoPro filming, but, uh, yeah, owner here, James has been so helpful pointing us in the right direction, giving us some help on where we can fish when it's windy, telling us where some of the weed beds are hiding. So, uh, I'm excited. Yesterday was just a small sample. We fished like half a day yesterday and I don't know, we caught a 36, 37, 38, 40, lost a couple of big ones. So incredible pike fishing today. I think, I think the folks will be pike today and then we've got one more day tomorrow and hopefully we can explore some more of the lake. The weather improves, but for now we're launching the boat and we're getting out there. It feels like I'm going through the tent parade at a big tournament or something, but no, no, just headed to the boat launch. It's nice and close. I'm going to give you guys a quick tour since we're driving around. There's the cabin. We're staying in that one. I apologize for the wind noise. This is probably horrendous. There's the main lodge. That's where they do cooking. They do an American plan here. If you don't want to cook your meals, they got internet, they got a cell booster there. And, uh, yeah, there's the campground. You guys want to camp. And there is the lake. It is looking big and mean right now, but that's, that's, you know, there's always somewhere there's multiple boat launches on the lake here. So you can always launch somewhere to stay a little bit out of the wind. And, uh, yeah, today we're not going too far yesterday. We went pretty far across the lake today. We're staying a little closer. All right. The camera's going away. And next time you see us, we'll be hopefully on a pike Bay fish. Oh, on the surface. This might be big. This might be big. The bait just hit. Oh, did I just lose them? No. He's in the weeds. Oh, he's in thick weeds. Nice. We're on the board in the wind and the waves. First pike of the day. And it is so fat, so fat. Oh man. All right. That's a good start. Oh, it feels good. Oh, that's a good one. This might be the biggest one yet under, under, under, under, under. Yes. Woo. Yeah, there we go. Just nasty. But we got a big one. Look at that headbanger. Big pike Manitoba. Almost fish. Oh, it feels good. 38 and a half. Get in here, dad. Come smile. Manitoba monster right there. Wow. 38 and a half. Nice man. Another fat one, man. Yeah. Nice. Ooh, those are big head shakes. Oh, that's pretty long dad. Oh yeah. Nice. This has been probably one of the better pike days I've ever seen. Another one. I don't know what to say. I'm kind of out of breath. Dad's on. Nice. All right. Getting spoiled. Oh, I'll just hold him up to the camera. Ah, he is pretty long. 39, 39. So when you're fishing in crazy weather like this, there's a couple of things you need to think about. It gives me a peace of mind. Definitely wearing my life jacket all the time, especially in these storms. You kind of got to figure out how to fish to, to make things work. If you need to sit down and cast, that's fine. If you need a troll, that's going to be easier to keep our balance a little more stable. Right now we're spot locking, drifting a little bit, spot locking. Oh, oh my goodness. Heads up. That was straight coming at my head. Yeah. Wow. Dad just dodged a bullet. I don't know if the camera showed that. So a lot of the gear I'm using, you can see is fairly heavy. I'm using beefed up gear. There's, there's no reason when you're dealing with super heavy weeds, like sometimes these fish will dive right down in the weeds. And this, this is on the topic of fish care really is just having the right rods. Like sometimes we all have those stories. Oh, and I landed a 40 inch pike on six pound test. It's like, that's great. I'm glad you landed the fish, but like that's really hard on the fish. And sometimes it's out of your control. I totally get that. Um, but when you are targeting these big fish have the right gear, this is, this is on the heavier side. This is eight and a half foot. This one is extra heavy, but even a medium heavy, uh, as far as length goes, I wouldn't go shorter than like eight feet long. It's nice for launching bigger baits and then test 60. I wouldn't go under 60. I'm using 80 now, or this might even be a hundred. Uh, and then you can use the same setup for, you know, muskies or pike such powerful fish, so much fun fall pike fishing. We're not catching a ton, but they're big. Yeah. Ooh. Ooh. I saw a long fish. You got something? Yeah. It's a big one. Oh, it's a big one. Oh, even though I'm using like such a heavy musky rod, it just buckled it. This fish is just fighting. Ooh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's a fat fish. Oh, this fish is fat. Oh, this fish is fat. Oh, that's a tank. That is an absolute tank. This is my biggest of the trip. Weight-wise for sure. We'll check on length. Oh, dad. Oh, 40, 42, 42 incher. All right, guys. It's so deceiving. I thought this was another 38. This is a 42 inch tank tank. And tell the people what this does for you. This gives me my fifth pike master angler. Oh, and she's gone. That pike gives me my fifth master angler pike, which is a specialist. I get a special pin now. I can call myself a pike specialist. I probably caught five master angler pike in Manitoba. I've only started entering master anglers again. I kind of took a little lull, but I got my fifth, which is something I've been trying to get. And now my dad needs to make it happen. We're probably not going to fish too much longer. It's going to be a choppy ride back, but there's something I want to do before we finish off on this weed bed. I want to try to get an underwater strike. You've seen this before. It's called the Go Fish Cam. It's a castable camera. And I thought this would be a pretty good situation for it. It's a fairly clear lake. The pike are chomping. So we got bucktail, musky leader. I put an extra little snap in there to hopefully get rid of some movement. And then straight to the, I think this is a hundred pound braid or 80 pound braid, but this thing will hopefully record some pike. We'll give it a shot. Are you not getting weeds? Oh, did you see him? I don't, I don't know the camera. Oh geez. Was it the same one I wonder? I don't know. Yeah. Oh, we're on, we're hooked up. Cameras are all misty. I don't know if the underwater camera is still rolling. Oh, oh, that's big. Oh man. Oh man. That fish is batting up for the fall time. Another 40 incher. This is our third 40, 40 plus today. Wow. What a day. All right, you're ending the day. Yes. Yeah. Didn't, uh, haven't achieved my goal yet. So, you know, it was badly outfished by Jay, but, uh, it was still fun. Try a couple of new things here. It'll be interesting to see what kind of footage we get. Now you got to punch the camera. Welcome back. It is the morning of day three. Well, kind of like afternoon, the weather is pretty ugly. This is our last day. The sun's finally coming, but I got to look at our underwater footage from yesterday on the go fish cam. And when I brought the camera in, I saw some teeth marks on it. So I knew this was going to be good to Pike. One or two Pike tried to eat the camera, which was absolutely ridiculous. And some pretty cool strikes. A couple of times the blades weren't spinning. So you could see me trying to pull the bucktail and the Pike came and attacked it, but check this out. Hey guys, we are going fishing. I'm going to give you a quick little, like a very quick tour. Our cabin, boom, kitchen, TV, dining area, my messy bedroom. My dad's not messy bedroom and our boat is right out there. So day three, we're going to do some walleyes. There's some big walleyes in this lake. We want to catch some dinner as well. Catch some walleyes and then get my dad. Well, he's already caught big Pike. He's completely spoiled. There's nothing wrong with 40 inch, but we're going to see if we can crack the magical 41 inch mark for him. Welcome to the ocean. This is like the nicest weather we've had in the past five days in the North here. We're taking advantage of, we're doing some walleye fishing. Um, you guys told us about some humps out in the middle here. Come up to like 10, 12 feet. We're fishing off the edges of them. Uh, jigging wraps. I'll show you if you don't know what a jigging wrap looks like. These are super fun baits when you're trying to drop down and stay vertical on fish and dad's hooked up. We're trying to catch some dinner. We haven't been fishing too long. The goal is to get dinner, put a couple of walleyes in the boat and then go get him a big Pike. Perfect eater. All right, hold them up. Dad. Perfect. That's good. That's like perfect eating size. I'm told there's huge walleyes in here. We will, uh, probably just go back to fishing after we catch a couple more walleyes. That is a little bigger than we need to eat today, but I am thoroughly impressed with the walleye fishing. It's been pretty fast. We've only walleye fished for an hour or two. All right. Pike fishing last day. Dad's quest for a trophy Pike fish. First cast of the bike fishing. First cast day three, Northern Manitoba Pikes. Oh, we'll see. Maybe I'll keep that. And then what? Well, I thought about trying to catch. You got one? Yep. Ooh. Yeah. That looks good. Yep. Come on. This could be it. I haven't seen it, but it's stained. Oh yeah. This is big. Yeah. Dad's excited. Ooh, a nice fish. All right. Just another 37 incher. Did it scare you? Banged the heck out of my elbow into the boat. All right, guys, we've got one spot left, but I want to give you a little breakdown, some advice if you want to get into fishing for, well, not even, not even just big pike, but big fish in general. And just for fish care, there's, there's so many things you can do to stack the odds in your favor. Number one thing is limiting time out of the water for the fish. So first thing you need, if you're going to fish for pike, muskies, big lake trout, anything big, get yourself a big net. I know people laugh at how big this net is. It's called the Big Kahuna by Frabel. I'll link it below. Yes. It's a little bit big for a lot of pike situations, but I have one big net that I can use for, I can use everything for cats, for muskies, for Lakers, for pike. And the beauty of this huge basket is that that fish can just stay in the water and you don't have to drop it into the bottom of the boat. There's so many times you see big fish just getting slammed in the bottom of the boat. This hangs over the side of the gunnel, even on a high deep V boat like this, and that fish can swim around. And then the next, as you can see, we've had this beside us pretty much ready the entire time. This is a bump board, but the nice thing about this is the fish doesn't touch the carpet. He doesn't lose any slime. This is ready to go. And then just, yeah, proper release tools, long pliers, having bolt cutters, if you need to cut hooks out. Some people like using jaw spreaders, but long pliers are pretty key. Those couple of things will help you out so much. We are using pretty beefy gear, but that also gives you a shorter fight. Yeah. You want the fish to survive because these fish are going to get caught again and again and again. You can't catch a 50 inch pike if you don't release them at 45 inches. So last bay of the day, and hopefully dad can make it happen or he'll just come ice fishing with me. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Hello. All right. It'd be nice to hold this guy up for one last little peek. He's barely hooked though. And I'm going to show you, oh, that's bigger than I thought. Another Cormorant Lake pike. Guys, if you're looking for a Northern Manitoba getaway, Simon Nabis Wayside Park is where we're staying. James has been an awesome host. This has been the end of a great Northern little road trip. We didn't get my dad, the master angler pike, but that means it's an excuse to bring them out again for maybe ice fishing for 41 for the ice. But this has been a fantastic Northern tour. Guys, please wear your life jackets. And next time we see you, it's probably almost hunting season. Take care.