CHANGE OF SEASONS

Winter fishing for pike has, in a lot of ways, changed for many of us from being the most popular season toward the least favorite of the four seasons.

Back in the days when I started to fish for pike (2004, before social media!) you either got your information from sketchy websites, books or by talking to other anglers. Video wasn’t as widely available as it is now (VHS or DVD’s, anyone?) and a website with the latest in instructional videos was unthinkable at the time. Nowadays you can learn in a day what normally took months to learn. The new Savage Gear website takes the next step in that. Bringing anglers together and boost each other’s knowledge through quality videos, articles and insights from professional anglers.

Also, in 2004, winter was by far the most popular time of year to fish for pike, especially in the Netherlands and surrounding areas. And to be honest, I never understood why. I must admit that my pike-angler journey didn’t start out in the most typical fashion. I wasn’t allowed to fish for pike until I was 16. A rule made up by my dad and it added even more mystery to the illusive Esox Lucius. When I finally turned 16, I was fully into online gaming and spend all my spare time in playing and practicing Counter-Strike. At the time I played for the national team and went to several big events. I even paid for my first boat with the prize money I won from a tournament. That all happened after I foolishly picked up a rod from the shack of my dad, patched it up with some line and a spinning reel and fixed the broken handle of the rod with some duct tape. Just some casual casts with a small, double bladed spinner ended up in my landing my first pike and it was a giant. It measured a whopping 100cm and down the rabbit hole I went.

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October, I wish it was a 4 month period...

I started reading all I could and stumbled upon the general accepted playbook of pike fishing. Most pike anglers fished for pike in the winter and focused on other species during the warmer months. Stubborn as I was, I didn’t really accept the idea that pike fishing was only good when the water was cold and your hands even colder. I kept fishing and soon I realized that a boat would give me a ton of options. So, during the winter my dad and I bought a small little boat that needed some repairs and a small badly serviced engine. As you may know, money earned with online gaming back in the days was a joke compared to what it can be now.

I fished year-round and did most of my fishing trolling. As it turned out from the beginning my absolute best fishing days were in June and October. This turned out to be my blueprint for the years to come and even today those months are my favorite. Why? Because in June the water is still warming up and the pike are feeding after spawning. The vegetation is still low and the days are long, perfect for pike fishing. October is kind of the same but in reverse. Temperatures are still good, not too high and declining. The same goes for vegetation and the length of the days. Also, pike are feeding to stock some reserves for the colder months.  And yes, for you Scandinavians, April and May are awesome too… But they close down the season in the Netherlands during these months and that’s why I basically started to live in Sweden two months a year.

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For a couple of years now, I am 1/6th Swedish

But what about winter? Why was or is it so popular? Well it comes down to a couple of things I reckon. First, in winter it’s much easier to fish from the banks. As a boat angler, you can go to the deep open water and have almost total freedom in the spots you want to fish. When you fish from the banks you are limited to the spots you can fish, thick vegetation makes that even more limited.

Another key feature of the winter season is the fact that baitfish usually migrate towards winter spots. Dead-ends, sheltered areas like harbors or deeper pools within a water system. That makes them easier to find and for some this makes winter so appealing. The fact that the pike are so fat at the end of the winter helps too, especially if you are into kilograms or pounds instead of centimeters or inches. But like many others, I prefer to fish with lures. Winter is the best time of the year to fish with deadbait and while I do like the occasional deadbait session, if I had to choose, I would pick lures 99% of the time. And that’s where my grudge with winter comes in…

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Summer vibes to keep you warm during the winter!

Fishing with lures in winter can be a pain, especially when the fish move into deep holes where it is hard for you to reach them. The range between 0 and 10 meter is doable, if you go deeper than that it will become harder and harder. Large stretches of water are empty and when the pike located near the big schools of small baitfish in shallow water, they become so focused on one technique of feeding that it is very hard to catch them in these spots. We’ve all seen those shallow spots where pike have learned a very effective and spectacular technique of feeding. They figured out that a lot of small fish have the same value as one big fish. All they need to do is just open their mouth and smash through a school of small baitfish as hard as they can. By doing that a few times a day they have so much food that they do not have to move at all for the rest of the winter. Thus, pike go inactive and only feed in this particular manner.

This makes up my second point. In the warmer months from Spring to Autumn, they are on the move. Either for spawning or hunting big prey. But in winter, it is all passive. A challenge, for sure, but not the best month of the year to get those breathtaking strikes, play the cat and mouse game between the angler and that mammoth pike or the challenge of finding that one giant fish that roams around the lake. Fishing is more passive in the winter and while it has it appeal; it does require a more passive approach… Does it?

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Winter does make them so pretty! Slowtrolling with the Burbot was key to catching this giant!

There are solutions and besides the slow-trolling to reach bigger depths (which I will cover in an upcoming video), speed trolling is also a solution! When you find the pike and they are completely focused on the big schools of small baitsfish, one surprisingly effective technique can be to troll with high speeds through these schools of baitfish. The idea is to move the lure so fast in front of the pike that is has no time to think and it’s a game of take it or leave it. With higher speeds I really mean the unconventional speeds, trolling in fresh water for pike with speeds up to 8km/h! Crankbaits are the way to go as swimbaits tend to rise up to the surface.

Like all season, winter has its charm and it can provide you with some stunning scenery and super fat pikes. It’s not my favorite time of year when it comes to fishing, but it still has a lot of options and by picking the right days, you can have some great results even though the activity in general isn’t what it is during the rest of the year. For me, winter is also the time when I stay inside more often on a rainy day and focus on repairs, gear and start planning for the upcoming spring season. And I can tell you, once March hits us and the sun starts to get warm again and the pike move out of their winter spots… It feels like heaven!

Until then, happy hunting during these colder months and stay tuned for more articles and videos to keep you warm!

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When the pike move from the winter spots to the shallows… Heaven!