Discussion of weather has been the talk of the Guide Den this season. Unlike cities to the south, it’s not been hot at Scott. It’s just been strange. A few days of warm temperatures followed by cold fronts. One day of encouraging high pressure followed by a low that just hangs over the area. We have been predictably getting unpredictable weather. At times just plain weird.
Pike are creatures that love stability. They can get used to any temperature/pressure regime as long as it’s consistent. They hate this yo-yo pattern. Our weather in June has been very un-Juneish which typically is hot and sunny. We expected a big dip in our big fish numbers. But the conventional wisdom in the Guide Den has been dead wrong, well half wrong. Our total pike trophy numbers (216 in the twenty days of June fishing) are down but the really big fish numbers are up. Two dozen pike over 44” were landed in June; sixteen at 45 or bigger. Those are big fish and big numbers. Especially dramatic are the really, really big fish. Tim Buzzell has a 46 incher; Peter Mitchell a 46.5; Joe Daugherty a very fat 47 incher; Scott owner Tom Klein added a 47″ and Jack Barlo topped the list with a 47.5 inch pike. In 2011 we had thirty-one pike at 45 or over. For 2012 we are on a pace to race past that total. Why? Only the pike know and they’re not talking.
Not only have there been a lot of long pike, we have also caught hundreds of very fat ones. Our guide team, with an average tenure of ten years at Scott, have never seen such heavy pike at this time of year. Tails are sticking out of a lot of fish; big bellies are the rule this season. Large schools of bait, mainly lake ciscos, have been observed. No one knows why but fat fish don’t lie. This has been a tremendous early season for heavy fish. Just peruse through our Pics of the Day to see the proof.
Lake trout “season” starts in mid-July but we are already seeing quite a few hogs in the guides’ cradles. Six over 40” were landed in June, not a bad start. Grayling are always tough in June but this year it’s really been tough with extremely high water in our grayling rivers. When the water starts to drop down our grayling numbers will go up. So only one Triple Trophy hat was awarded in June — Carolyn Nelson captured that one.
We are still waiting for a stretch of high pressure and high temperatures. When it happens things will really bust loose. In the meantime we’ll keep fishing and catching.