If you’re an angler who loves pursuing trophy sized fresh water fish who put up a fight and taste delicious out of the frying pan, then you’ve got to be a big fan of the northern pike. These game fish are among the most popular in the world for very good reason and even better, there are a variety of different lures which can be effective for snagging these hard fighting fish. Whether you are a fan of the classic crank bait, or you like the smaller “bombers” or the larger “magnums,” many anglers absolutely love using crank baits for northern pike, and it can be an extremely effective method. I use these both with the cast and reel technique as well as the trolling techniques in larger lakes. I’ve caught dozens of 8+ pound pike using both of these methods.
Because of how I grew up always using crank baits in both Minnesota and Canada, these are some of my favorites. In fact, Rapalas and crank baits were interchangeable synonyms in our house when I was growing up. This personal preference was even further reinforced from years of bass fishing in the Midwest, and once again crank baits were excellent lures when it came to those aggressive sports fish. However, this doesn’t mean that only crank baits are used in order to fish for trophy sized northern pike. There are even pro anglers who choose to go with a different choice of lures.
Some of the most popular lures for going after pike include:
- Crank baits
- Spinners and spinner baits
- Jerk baits
- Spoons
- Jitter bugs
- Rattle baits
One thing that many of these lures have in common is that they make noise, jerk through water, and in short get the attention of anything in the area. There’s not a lot of subtlety to them, and northern pike tend to be extremely aggressive and territorial. Even if they’re not hungry, just annoying them enough could be enough to get them to strike the lure and thus allow you to land the pike. What lure will work best depends greatly on your location, the time of day, and the season as well. From specific colors to good technique, there are many different situations where one lure will work better than another. However big pike tend to be aggressive and want to fight and so using a wide range of different lures can work very well.
While picking out the right pike equipment is important when it comes to fishing line, reels, and rods, but when it comes to fishing lures you have a lot more options and that should help give you confidence when it’s time to hit the water.