Ahab and the mighty pike: a rare adversary

I baited the first line and set the rod down, letting the hook and nightcrawler dangle a few inches above the water.

As I turned my attention to baiting up a second line, the monster pike broke the surface, snatching the dangling bait, instantly cutting the line and safely splashing down again.

I had never seen anything like it in all my 15 years. It felt like the bugger had just given me a colossal middle finger and strolled away laughing.

Even 35 years later, the memory of that raw annoyance is as clear as the week it happened.

I returned to the cove often that summer, hunting that monster pike. At least I thought it was a pike. I’d never caught anything but chain pickerel in the pond, but there were stories from old timers about pike that had been dropped in and grown giant.

I spotted the fish a few times that summer. I first met him when I was reeling up a perch and saw a long-greenish hue drifting up slowly behind it. It was so large I though the perch on the line had dislodged a sunken log. Then the log took a good look at me and slowly sank back into the dark water.

And I was hooked.

Every chance I got, I was motoring the little 12-foot rowboat with a 6 hp Evinrude over to the cove.

I spotted the pike a few times that summer but never managed to hook him. I’ve learned a lot since then and believe I could take him these days. But I’d be sure to let him go out of respect.

One should always treasure a good adversary.

I’ve since met a few fish that required a little extra effort or another visit before they could be landed, but none nearly so elusive as the pike.

I had one bass that stuck to a sunken tree in about eight feet of water. There were so many fish by this tree that bass were a sure bet every time one visited, no matter how high the sun was in the sky.

There was one fish who kept snapping the line. Every time he was hooked, he drove powerfully down under, then across, the tree. This fish knew what he was doing.

I was almost disappointed when I finally landed him, and he turned out to be only about 16 inches. I think maybe he just finally gave up, I believed, so I’d relieve him of the hooks in his mouth. He returned four of my baitholder hooks that day and was released to go confound other anglers.

It’s a lucky angler who finds a good nemesis – that fish that refuses to be hooked or caught. It makes the chase that much better.

Maybe that’s a game for children who’ve not yet learned how to catch all they come across. But it’s a good way to build a memory.