Plattsburgh, New York

Decided to break in the new waders this afternoon and target some river pike. Landed this solid 26 incher and his little cousin. Got a couple nice yellow perch and a fallfish as well. Snagged my favorite lure on a submerged tree that was just out of reach, and I successfully unscrewed the reel seat and slid my rod down the line to retrieve it. Only the second time I’ve ever attempted that trick, and I’m 2 for 2!

Went out for about an hour and a half in hopes of a river pike. Instead I found some decent smallies! A couple of them were probably upwards of 2lbs. They seemed to really like the jerkbaits today and so did the fallfish. I landed a few of these guys and actually lost a giant one that was at least 16”. My third species of the session was a little yellow perch.

My first full day back at school and I found a hot pike bite. Got 21 pike in just 2 hours with the biggest coming in at 26”, he had a huge head but was pretty scrawny. The reason a lot of these fish are so skinny is because there really isn’t any baitfish around, a couple of perch here and there but that’s it. These pike are surviving on cannibalism. My theory was proven after my second pike of the day coughed up a baby pike. On top of my slimy success, I fished a small spillway on the Saranac and landed dozens of baby smallmouth and some rock bass on swimbaits and topwater spooks. I finished the day off with a nice largemouth near the mouth of the river.