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!

Slaying the smallies at a super secret spot in Northern Maine

A fun session at Higgins beach Maine

THE TDTOP 5

5 - Slingin'lures and boatin' smallies. The complete lack of precipitation in Maine for both the winter and early spring has resulted in summer like water levels in my river and better than average April fishing.
 4 - Jason Silva on the Joe Rogan podcast. One hour into this podcast and you're questioning whether or not we're in a real life Matrix. Or are we? I can't do it Justice. It's the 3/13/12 episode.
3 - Andrew Short getting his first supercross win! Yeah Shorty! It was one of the highlights of a supercross  season that's seen virtually every big name rider, including Shorty, out with injury. Nice to see one of the good guys finish first.
2 - Red Fang, "Wires". I'm ripping this off from a FB post today. Thanks Eric. Just when you thought the whole music video medium was dead, Red Fang delivers this master piece! Milk Jugs and the family truckster? Are you kidding me Clark?

1 - What's going to follow that?

Smallies like watermelon!

Bex first Pike!

15" smallie caught on white speckle tube

Watermelon tubes that is! I've been reading up on the early season habits of river small mouth and the general consensus is to fish bright plastics like a tube or craw fish with a somewhat slower then normal retrieve. After some trial and error with tube color and retrieve speed and technique, the fish definitely responded to a slow retrieve with either a white or watermelon colored tube. My wife boated her first pike along with a few nice small mouth. Good times.

ACCIDENTAL FISHING!

The decision to fish Indian Pond in Northern Maine was a last minute one. My wife keeps her horse about 45 minutes away from the lake, at a long time friend's house. Through their relationship I've become friends with her husband Bob, an avid fisherman, snowmobiler and all around good guy. Bob had picked up a sweet Lund Alaskan fishing boat and was itching to take it on it's first run this year. It required about 30 seconds of arm twisting for me to get on board for the 2 hour trip North to Bingham. We rolled in, threw the fishing gear in the truck, made a pit stop for Fritos and chocolate bars (two of the four food groups) and pointed the truck to the south end of Indian pond.

Apparently all you need for the "hard to catch" brook trout.

We arrived at the lake greeted by bluebird skies, 60+ degree temps and a cranking 15 knot west wind. The west wind was warm but it was going to make fishing sketchy, most likely forcing us to find shelter on the west side or in some wind protected coves or inlets. For any of this to happen the boat was going to have to run, which was proving to be a  little bit of a problem . We dropped the boat  in the water, tossed our gear in, turned the key, and wuh! Nothing. An hour and a half, about 2 dozen four letter words, and one repaired battery connection later, we were on our way down the lake. We hit up an inlet, where Bob had caught some nice native brookies in the past, to a whole lot less wind and zero success for the first hour or so. We threw just about anything we thought might work, and were just about to try another spot when Bob hooked up with a nice 10" brook trout. It's funny how one quick fish can erase an hour and a half of skunkage. With a fresh boost of adrenaline from getting a fish in the boat, we decided to head another 5 miles up the lake to a spot Bob thought might get us into some more brookies and possibly some smallmouth. We pulled into this unnamed spot, (go find it yourself if you want the goods) set the trolling motor on a heading and started slinging some spinners. About 10 minutes in I hooked up with a nice smallmouth that reminded me why I love catching this particular fish. Strong and fast fights with a whole lot of air time. We continued further up this inlet,(another clue?) without any success until we arrive at a beautiful spot with a little more current and a whole lot of potential. Bob had had quite a bit of success with smallies in this spot in the past by throwing a good size spinner bait. He hooked on a double bladed rig and started flipping it toward anything that looked like it might hold some hungry smallmouth. I was at the front of the boat doing the same when I heard a splash, followed by some choice 4 letter words. Bob's reel had snagged on a cast and the weight of the lure when it fetched up, ripped the pole out of his hands and sent it about 8' down to the bottom of the river bed. I saw what happened and before we moved off the spot and lost the pole for good, I took my spinner off and put on the biggest hook I could find and tried to snag his sunken fishing pole. I had gone back and forth a half dozen times when, SLAM my pole just about gets ripped out of my hands! I recovered from the initial shock and started fighting what I initially thought was a smallmouth. I started reeling  and caught a flash of silver. Not a bass? Reeled a little more. Trout! Reeled a little more and got him a little closer. Big brook trout! I yard him up into the boat just as he shakes the baitless, weighted, fishing pole dredging hook I had on and lands in the boat. Bob and I look at each other in disbelief and just start laughing like crazy, taking pictures and just enjoying the hell out of one of the wierder fishing moments either of us had ever experienced.

THE TDTOP FIVE (WAY LATE)

5 - K-Dub surviving one of the dirtiest crashes I've seen him take in his supercross career. Dub was killing in his heat race against a much younger and supposedly faster James Stewart,when he caught his foot scrubbing a triple and proceeded to whiskey throttle a 70' jump, go over the bars, get drilled by both his bike and planet earth, then gets up under his own power to get off the track . If you're not a fan of Kevin Windham you clearly have issues.
4 - The intro riff to Seek And Destroy. I'm ripping this off from a FB post from a good buddy of mine. Thanks Head for getting that riff stuck in my head for the better part of a week. Raise the horns \m/ \m/ !
3 - Working on the fishing kayak.  I've got plans and they involve cordless drills, shock cord(not what you might think), stainless hardware, and a massive cup of coffee.
2 - Actually learning how to fish smarter. I read  an article from the In Fisherman the other day about early season, cold water Bass fishing. As I'm reading all the tips on choices of baits/lures, time of day, phases of moon(no bullshit, they claim this matters) I'm getting more stoked on all of this knowledge I'm going to apply to my fishing. I come to the end of the article and the closing statement is basically "of course fish being fish, none of this may work, so just throw whatever you've got in the boat and see what happens!" Gee, thanks guys.

1 - Working on some product! I appreciate all the; what is it? When is it? Oh that's what it is?! Questions about the company. I'm working on it, believe me. Getting this company going has been  a fun and time consuming process and I have a lot of people to thank so far. Thanks to Holly at Mailings unlimited for the graphic design work, you killed it! There are way too many options (I didn't know some of these colors existed) in a graphic design program for someone with my attention span to deal with. Thanks for putting up with me. If anyone needs direct mail/marketing help with their company you won't find a better group of people than the crew at Mailings Unlimited.