This tournament could be renamed the Bassmaster Elite Pike Fest at the Mississippi River presented by Go RVing. You’re going to hear hundreds of northern pike stories over the next four days.
“This place is a fish factory,” Greg Hackney said prior to takeoff this morning. “The only problem is you catch more pike than you do bass. You always catch a bunch of pike here, but it’s insane now. Schools of them. There are places where you can catch big ones every cast.”
What’s a “big one”?
“Ten pounds,” Hackney said. “I’ve caught 10-pounders on back-to-back casts multiple times. A couple of times in practice I just poled down and worked on them. I’m a fisherman at heart. Anything that pulls is fun. The second day of practice I spent the last two hours catching pike. We don’t have anything like this at home.”
Hackney noted that today particularly will be a pike fest, due to the rain and cloudy conditions. Sixty-five-pound-test braided line is no match for sharp-toothed northern pike. Hackney looked down at a spinnerbait tied on to one of the rods on his boat deck, and said, “That won’t last long.”