Nantucket sleigh ride (Maine style)

36" TDT rulers are usually enough!

I usually don't fish expressly for Northern Pike and up until last year hadn't caught one of these eating machines. The section of the Androscoggin River that I typically fish for smallmouth is known to contain a few of these submarines in the 7lb and up range. Until this session the largest pike I had boated was 25" and about 4lbs. Both of those measurements would change by a few digits at the end of this particular session. This day on the river was about average and by average I mean ridiculous amounts of fun. Beautiful 70+ degree temps, bluebird skies, and about a dozen smallies in the previous 2 hours. I was paddling back to the boat ramp when I remembered an old timer telling me that he had seen some "decent sized pike" in a shallow weed bed a few hundred yards North of the boat ramp. Seeing as my "schedule" was somewhat open for the next couple hours I figured I'd sling a couple spinners and see what might be hiding in the weeds. It hit on the second cast. Now compared to the smallmouth that I'd been catching, hit doesn't quite describe it. It felt like I snagged onto the bumper of a truck with an inebriated driver, a horrible sense of direction and a love of doing donuts. He took line! Lots of it! My drag had been set for the 1-2 lb smallies I typically catch at the river so when this torpedo took my spinner it was like dropping the gate on a supercross main! Let's do this! After the initial hit and line strippage, I settled into what I figured would be maybe a minute or two of back and forth and a nice pike in the boat. Then he started towing me around the cove and I realized he might be a little bigger then I had originally thought. I couldn't, and didn't see him for at least ten minutes. The water in the Andro this time of year looks like chocolate milk because of all the run off from different tributaries. It doesn't really clear up much until the summer when the rains slow down and the flow drops off some. So he starts towing me around in my 13.5' kayak. At first I'm cracking up until I realize he's towing me towards a downed tree about 40' away. If there's cover nearby, fish will try to get to it and he was heading straight for a potential line snapper of a submerged maple tree. As he's pulling, I'm holding onto the fishing pole with my right hand and trying to paddle/steer the kayak away from the tree with the left. After nearly ten minutes of this his pace slowed and I was able to  get him up alongside the boat and he gave me another surprise. He surfaced then dove, and as he dove I saw my spinner hooked right in front of his tail! He was literally pulling me around! After talking to a buddy of mine after the fact, I found out that if a pike misses a bait fish or lure, they may slap at it with their tail to try and stun their prey. Knowing the sketchy hook placement, I loosened up my drag a bit more and continued to play him less aggressively, letting him take line and not hurrying him to the boat. After about 5 more minutes he seemed to tire enough for me to bring him up alongside the kayak. His tail came out of the water first with the embedded lure right at the front of it. As quickly as I could, I grabbed the tail with my left hand, avoiding the lure, dropped my pole, and yanked the biggest pike I'd seen in person up into the boat. I didn't realize just how big he was until he landed in the right hand leg well of my kayak. He took up the whole thing! I paddled the 50 yards back to the boat ramp in complete disbelief. A couple back at the ramp was nice enough to take a few pics for me. And another fisherman who had also just come in from the river asked me if I wanted to weigh him. Commenting that he looked to be in the "8lb or so range." We hooked the scale to him and were both shocked when it settled on 15 lbs even! Outweighing the largest freshwater fish I've caught to date by about 10 lbs! And at 38"(measured on an adhesive,  customizable thatdangthing.com fish ruler) it was a solid foot longer than any pike I had previously caught. It was an amazing end to another great day on the river! Oh, and I just relined my poles with 25lb test and dug out my steel leaders. You know I'm going sub hunting again! Thanks for reading!