Kayaking for Northerns

I've been wanting to try my hand at Kayak fishing for a while now, this Memorial Day weekend provided a great chance to do just that. I was at a lovely lake in Northern Minnesota which will remain un-named, one rainy, overcast afternoon I had the chance to throw the Kayak on the rack and take it to a nearby, smaller, and even more un-named lake.

After making two trips from the car to the water, one with the Kayak on my shoulders, another for my rods, (both fly and spinning) and my paddle, tackle, etc... I was ready to go and eager to find some potential northerns.

To make a long story short... I fished for two and a half hours and landed 20 Northern Pike, and 1 incidental largemouth. I'm not really one for targeting bedding bass. I'd just as soon them do their thing and make more bass for me to fish for in summers to come.

I'd have REALLY liked to swing some flys into gear and wrestle with 9 pounds of submarine diving northern pike on my 8 weight. It was really windy and I was having trouble being so low to the water. I did get to test out my northern pattern that I tied by the fireplace this winter, longing for a day on this small lake hunting those toothy, slimey snakelike Northern Pike.

I was a fantastic day, and I returned the next morning, to land 5 more bass and 26 more northerns in another couple of hours on the water.

The highlight of the whole trip was a northern that actually jumped out of the water and grabed onto the back treble of my X-Rap just after it leaving the watter, it made it something like 20" out of the water to get this thing. The X-Rap is my new favorite lure for agressive game fish like that. Hands down. I also worked a small rostertail spinner bait which I think will come in mighty handy for some other uses this summer and fall. Larger spinner baits worked as well as inline spinners, yellow semed to be the hot color, and gold blades produced much more than silver ones.

All in all a really fun experience, I'm definitly heading back in the summer with my fly rod, I'm determined to get one on my big red and yellow streamer or my little crawfish patern.