Last Antique Tackle Fish of the Year

[David Lehmann]

Yesterday afternoon, I was able to get on the water one last time before putting the boat in the garage and winterizing it. Fishing a jointed Pikie in perch finsh on my trusty Supreme and Montague combo (my favorite vintage bass and pike setup), I caught a few pike, one around 24" and one close to 30". The one thing that struck me as I played the fish was how reliable thumbing is for controlling the fish and avoiding break off. I never had to worry that the drag would behave differently far from or close to the boat or that the drag may stick at an inopportune time. I'm not sure that I would have the same confidence thumbing with very light line, but when fishing 12 or 18 lb braided line, manual thumbing for drag is awfully easy and effective.



Here's the larger pike. Based on the bulge in its belly, I suspect my Pikie wasn't the first perch it attempted to eat yesterday.

[Paul Roberts]

Great catches, David. Lovely outfit too. Is that Montague bamboo, glass, steel? Were those Lake O. bay, or Finger Lakes, fish?

Thumbing does work well, as does back-reeling with spinning reels. Whole different fight too.

[David Lehmann]

Paul,
It's a Monty mid-grade bamboo. For casting rods, I fish middle-of-the-road Monty, South Bend, and Heddon cane rods. All of these are relatively inexpensive, and I'm not crestfallen if one breaks (although that has never happened). I like how cane casts compared to steel or fiberglass. I do fish early steel from time to time, but it always feels like I'm launching my lure from a catapult. For fly rods, cane and glass seem to cast not that differently, but for casting rods, fiberglass feels whippier than cane to me.

The fish was from one of Lake Ontario bays. In the central and eastern portions of the lake, I haven't found many pike in the open lake, but some of the bays and creeks have good populations. Really big (40"+) fish are pretty scarce though, but I do think there are a few around.

[Paul Roberts]

I used to fish Port Bay, and a few others. Buck Pond was a favorite. And the FL's (Seneca and Cayuga) had some good pike fishing. I also pursued pike up in some of the bay tributary streams. These were smaller fish but fun in such tight quarters on scaled tackle.

I've just started looking into bamboo casting rods and may try one at some point. I did just pick up a solid glass rod (from a thrift store) that surprised me in that it appears to sport "fishable" action and weight. I took it home for 75cents! Hey, worth a go.