Fishing can be a fickle beast. Sometimes it seems you can’t help but catch one on nearly every cast and other times it’s like there’s not a single one in the water, but on those good days you get the feeling that they’re literally jumping at you to be caught, which is ironically what actually happened to this guy just a few days ago.
Sportsman’s Journal is an outdoors program that runs 24/7/365 on Waypoint TV and while hosts Tyler and Sara were ice fishing up on Minnesota’s Leech Lake, a rather legendary northern fishery, a moment happened that wouldn’t be believed if it wasn’t caught on camera.
Tyler was jigging and hooked up with a bluegill. While it’s not a fish you generally target, if you get enough fat ones it makes for a very nice fish fry so I’m sure he wasn’t all that upset about it, but another creature down there took note of the struggling fish and decided to score what it thought would be an easy meal.
A nice sized northern pike came screaming up as Tyler was pulling the panfish out of the hole and lunged right as it reached the surface, bursting through up onto the ice, where it tossed and turned after realizing its mistake.
The sheer excitement in his voice is infectious and I’ve been smiling just from watching this; I can’t even imagine what it felt like pulling it off (or getting lucky, however you wish to view it):
“Oh my goodness! Are you kidding me? Holy… I gotta get this fish. I gotta get this fish! … *Frenzied laughter* Uh, holy cow, I think my heart is in my stomach. I never had that happen…
That’s a two-for-one deal! …
If I was out here by myself with no cameras, nobody, nobody would believe me but I got it all on film. I’m gonna be talking about this for awhile. Are you kidding me? How cool is that?“
The man said it himself but my goodness what a moment and truly if I didn’t see the video I’d be hard pressed to believe it. If someone at a bar is telling you a story of how he was ice fishing the other day when a big old pike swam right out of the water and into his lap, you’d say “Okay there bud,” grab your beer, and go find another seat, but if he whipped out his phone and showed you a video, chances are you’d be buying the next round of Busch Light bottles.
I’ve got to get myself ice fishing. I grew up in Pennsylvania where it’s really not that common, as least in the region where I lived, but seeing videos from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and other Midwestern states really puts an urge in me to take a trip out there, set up a tent on the water, and try to land some walleye for dinner. Heck, I’ve never even caught a pike (though plenty of pickerel) so I’d be beyond pumped just to land one of those bad boys and nothing else.
This is why you’ve got to spend time fishing. At the absolute worst you don’t catch anything and just enjoy a nice day in the great outdoors. But at the best, you’ll find yourself with a story that you’ll tell your kids and grandkids for the rest of your life, and if that’s not worth it than I don’t know what is.
Here’s the full episode:
