Why is fall the trophy pike season?
Three curves cross. Water cooling into the 7–13 °C (45–55 °F) band puts big females back in shallow, catchable water at full comfort; those females are eating hard to build eggs for spring — the year's biggest meals go down now; and baitfish (perch schools, spawning-run ciscoes and whitefish in late fall) are concentrated and shallow themselves. That is why oversized baits earn their reputation in fall, and why the last weeks before ice, fishing big dead or live baits near cisco spawning rocks, produce a disproportionate share of the true giants each year.
The full story
This answer is one piece of a longer lesson — setups, diagrams and the reasoning behind it.
Same topic, other species
- Is late fall really a big-crappie window? — Crappie
- Why is fall the trophy muskie window? — Muskellunge (Muskie)
- Why is fall the jumbo window? — Yellow Perch
- When does the fall feed-up happen, and how good is it really? — Smallmouth Bass
- What is the fall pattern for brook and lake trout? — Trout (Rainbow · Brook · Lake)
- Why is late fall the trophy walleye window? — Walleye