New Lake Record Pike… 49"!!!

This has been a great season for big fish. We are way ahead of last year's trophy pace... but not only that - we have already boated the largest trout since 1999 (42") and the largest walleye in the last few years (31"). In-Fisherman staffers Jim Besenfelder and Mike Bentler are here to host two of their good clients, Doug Long from Denver and Jesse Simpkins from Illinois. Doug is an avid fly-fisherman and has been catching tons of great fish on his fly! In fact, yesterday he landed 6 pike over 36" on his fly... the largest of which was 40". Fly fishing has never really caught on at Aikens because there is such a short time frame in which it will be successful, but when the time is right (late-May to mid/late June) it can be a deadly presentation. To our recollection, no one has ever caught a trophy pike on a fly here, so Doug's 40" is likely the fly-fishing record for the lake! Not to be outdone, Jesse Simpkins had other ideas. He wasn't using a fly rod, but instead a jig with Gulp minnow on it. He was fishing with Pat at the entrance of the Back Bay. It was still early in the morning, and Jesse was still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes when this monster hit! He told Pat "This is a big fish"... Pat said "Yeah, I can see that!". They had been slowly moving around with the Minn Kota electric motor, and now Pat had to chase down this monster but only had a top speed of 1.5 miles an hour! They finally did catch up to it, and it rose to the surface like a submarine. Pat said that seeing that gigantic head come up was a thrill of a lifetime. He quickly scooped it into the net, but about 1/3 of the fish was flopping out because it was so bloody long! Pat prayed that it didn't have any kicks left in it, and luckily it complied. The jig came flying out of its mouth as Pat put the net on the floor of the boat. Jesse and Pat both breathed a huge sigh of relief, then marvelled at the beast that was now in their boat. As you can see in the pictures, that head is enormous. The fish measured 49" x 19.5" girth. We had a 48" x 18" on a digital scale once, and it weighed 33 lbs... so Jesse's fish could have broken 35lbs. What an incredible fish and a great story. This 49" is going to be a top 10 (maybe top 5) fish in our province this year... not bad for a little old walleye lake! Congrats Jesse, now you have time to rest your arms after struggling to hold that whale for pictures! (ps - to see larger versions of the pictures just right click them and select "view image")