Pike and pontoon

It's as easy to manouver with feet and fins as the tube, and it's got the oars for getting around faster and you sit higher, which is especially nice in cold water. Pike fishing has almost become synonymous with fishing from either tube, pontoon or boat for me. It's only natural as many pike waters are best accessed this way and possibilities, once you're one the water, are almost endless.

I like fishing weed lines, banks and shallow water, but I almost always try and give deeper, open water a few hours as well. This often means heavier tackle (HT 10 is the business here), fast sinking lines and bigger flies. The heavier the line, the faster you can drag big, bulky flies down to "action depth" and keep them there for longer. My "Deeper Sonar" is *very* useful in fishing deeper water - it takes the guess work out of choosing the right line density and gives me an idea of underwater stuctures that might attract pike. I don't like just sitting there, chucking out half a chicken into deep, open water - I like to know just a little of what's happening below.

The pontoon also has a big load capacity, so if I wanted to, I could easily load for instance tent, mattress, sleeping bag, a Trangia stove, some food and water and go for a longer trip over night. I haven't tried this yet, but I certainly will at some point.

It's March 24th, which means that there are just a few days until pike are under conservations for a month (April 1st to April 30th), and with Easter coming up there'll be time for a trip or two. The pike are in the best condition of the year just prior to spawning as they really do feed up, even though they also eat during spawning.

The problem is of course that the salt is red hot right now, It's been really cold for 3 weeks, iced over in many places (yes, even in the salt) and when ice break is followed by warmer weather this late in spring, it tends to cram a month of spring fishing into a week. So - I'll also have to go get some sea trout before spring bononza is over. I hope I can fit it all in...

As if float tube, pontoon boat and kayak wasn't enough of an armada, I've been thinking about getting a small boat for the past year or two, but right now, it's on hold. I have several friends with boats, so I do get to fish quite a lot of boat fishing. But still - there are several lakes and stretches of beach that are just begging to be explored by boat. The bug is in me, so it'll probably happen at some point.

I've included a short film bit with me catching a pike from my pontoon boat.

Have a great weekend!

Lars