Close enuff to Friday

[Richard Flanders]

I know all the talk is about upcoming bird hunts but I just had a couple of good days pike fishing on a river on the north side of the Yukon east of the Yukon River Bridge with a neighbor. Fishing was slow but I managed about 25-30 pike of ~7# - 25# and mostly 15#-20#. I used a ~50yr old Shakespeare Wonderod and a similar vintage and near mint Mitchell 300 and both performed flawlessly and as expected. Nothing beats an old Wonderod for sexy action. I had that thing bent into a severe "U" nearly every fish and it held up just fine. You can have all those broomstick-stiff graphite rods.... it's Wonderods for me! They make you a better fisherman because you can't just horse the big ones in. I also caught a nice Sheefish, a type of whitefish that is sometimes referred to as "freshwater tarpon." We used all sorts of lures - spinners, Daredevils, Red eye Wigglers, Silver Spoons, and some more modern rubber lures meant for Lord knows what! Anything with a Mr. Twister type tail was hammered, and they hit viciously on most any top water lure, such as this huge wooden gray rat lure - they savaged that thing early this morning but had trouble hooking up on the single hook Ron replaced the treble hook with... little wonder, I know. He also had this absurd looking rubber top water lure that looked like a bat and had "Crazy Crawler" like wings. They smashed that thing! I'd stop to watch Ron use it just for the entertainment factor. It was really fun to fish with, despite the similar hooking up issue. The little rainbow trout lure was magic; I caught 6 nice pike with it this morning before we headed downriver to the bridge and none of them mangled it. If I go with him again I'm taking a few largish Jitter Bugs. The real winner was the mangled eel shown here; that was the best by far. At one point I caught 6 pike in 6 consecutive casts while no one else around me hooked anything. Finally the one pike I actually landed(shown) - we unhooked all of them in the water and let them go - which got the lure so far in we did him in just getting it out, mangled it(+a couple of fingers). This was nowhere near my biggest pike. I still kept on using it and it still worked(!) and in the end snipped the tail off in two pcs and hooked them onto Silver Spoons, which also worked very well. I've not seen a fish yet, from Michigan farm pond sunfish to 25# Alaskan pike, that can resist anything with a Mr. Twister type tail; they just can't. The orange/yellow baby burbot lure was a winner also and must have weighed 8oz. You needed a stiff rod just to toss it, but those big pike loved it. What a hoot! It was like tossing a baseball sized rock out when it hit. The fish didn't care; they were hungry and the splash was likely more of a dinner bell than an alarm. This was my first time in a boat on the Yukon and I can tell you it's one big river that you can't let your guard down on for a minute. There are hidden sand bars and logs that you can't see until you hit them. We had no issues though and a good time was had by all. I'll add that many years ago two friends and I lined our three planes up side by side and flew under the Yukon bridge in the last picture, each taking a bay. THAT was a hoot also. I love this place!