Big Summer Pike

I had a couple of hours to spend this afternoon, so I figured what's better to do than a little pike fishing? I launched the boat in the Escanaba Harbor on Little Bay de Noc, and set up in search of esox. The fishing was actually very slow. In fact, I only contacted one fish in about three hours of fishing. The day was hot for late August with temps in the upper 70s. The wind was light, the sky was clear, and the sun was bright. The conditions were probably nightmarish for most pike anglers. Well, it turned out to be my lucky day because the one fish that I did contact was a beast! I was working a white pike/musky spinnerbait over some weeds when he bit. He put up a great fight, making several powerful runs before I was able to scoop him up in the musky net. This fish was an absolute slob, broad shouldered with a big gut. I guessed it to be about 44 inches long. It turned out to be only 41 inches. The overall mass of this fish caused me to overestimate his length. I couldn't guess what this fish weighed, but I would bet it was substantially over 20 lbs. As always, the fish was handled as gently as possible, and released unharmed after a couple of pictures.