Happy Birthday To Phil

Saturday, Phil Rowley spent the day with me on Muir Lake for my birthday. Today, I returned the favor and spent the day on Lake Wabamun hunting for big Pike with him and his oldest son in celebration of Phil's birthday. It was a gorgeous day with lots of sunshine for most of the day and not much wind. The Pike action was pretty hot and heavy but only one monster was caught today and lucky for the birthday boy, it came on the end on his line. Don't get me wrong, lots of nice size toothy critters were caught today but only one that was in the 40 inch mark. Popsicle leeches, clouser minnows, bunny leeches and top water poppers all caught fish. Brandon and Phil spent most of the day fishing Pike streamers but I stuck pretty much with top water poppers. I did fish streamers as well and had way better luck with them but to me, the rush with northern pike on a fly rod comes with top water flies and if I would have just hooked into one 40 incher on a popper, it would have made my week. To the left is Phil releasing his monster pike.

We fished near the warm water discharge that enters the lake from the power plant and because of the current, we pretty much fished it like a stream, letting the streamers drift and swing with a strip, pause, strip type of retrieve. We saw lots of monster Pike thrashing for food on the surface as well as some pretty big lake whitefish doing the same. We also saw a great midge hatch and even a nice mayfly hatch. Man, this lake would make one great trout fishery but hey, who's complaining with the size of Pike it's been know to produce. I brought along some striploin steaks , potato salad and corn on the cob and cooked them up on my portable BBQ which made for a nice shore lunch. All in all it was a great day on the water with good company. Happy birthday "Hat Floater", hope you had a fun day.


Here's a video of Phil bringing in a nice size pike.



Here's a pic of that pike.