06-26-2014, 10:59 PM
Thought I would post an old photo of some northern pike my family caught. It was 1979 and my family was on our way back from Kenai, Alaska, where my dad had a construction job. The picture shows my three younger siblings and just a handful of the fish we caught that day. We caught a half dozen or more like the biggest one I am holding in the photo. I don't recall if that was one of the biggest ones or not, but I was about 4'10" back then.
This picture was taken not to far from the Alaska/Canada border outside of Tok Junction. On the south side of the road, there just happened to be an old construction pull out that had enough room to park our trailer for the night and we had stopped there on a couple of other occasions. Anyhow, there is a nice lake conveniently nearby that we had caught pike from before, so we got out our poles and headed for the lake. I am confident that the lake was hardly ever fished, maybe by a couple dozen people a year.
My dad had several large minnow baits that he had carved and painted to look like rainbow trout. The bills had broken off, so they were the perfect top water lure. We'd caste out into the lily pads, aiming for a bit of real estate that was open. Invariably though, you'd catch a lily pad and have to jerk pretty hard to get it loose. Often that jerking would trigger a strike. Well these monsters would tear your lure free for you and we'd crank them in. We caught quite a few of these big monsters like the one I am holding up(I am on the far right in the photo.)
Dad knew how to fillet them and mom knew how to cook them up. I am sure that if you were to ever drive up to Alaska, that same place would be loaded with these toothy monsters just waiting to jump on your hook. Awesome times and great memories.
Matthew
[signature]
This picture was taken not to far from the Alaska/Canada border outside of Tok Junction. On the south side of the road, there just happened to be an old construction pull out that had enough room to park our trailer for the night and we had stopped there on a couple of other occasions. Anyhow, there is a nice lake conveniently nearby that we had caught pike from before, so we got out our poles and headed for the lake. I am confident that the lake was hardly ever fished, maybe by a couple dozen people a year.
My dad had several large minnow baits that he had carved and painted to look like rainbow trout. The bills had broken off, so they were the perfect top water lure. We'd caste out into the lily pads, aiming for a bit of real estate that was open. Invariably though, you'd catch a lily pad and have to jerk pretty hard to get it loose. Often that jerking would trigger a strike. Well these monsters would tear your lure free for you and we'd crank them in. We caught quite a few of these big monsters like the one I am holding up(I am on the far right in the photo.)
Dad knew how to fillet them and mom knew how to cook them up. I am sure that if you were to ever drive up to Alaska, that same place would be loaded with these toothy monsters just waiting to jump on your hook. Awesome times and great memories.
Matthew
[signature]