Zone 15 Pike opens the third weekend in May unlike the Pike in zone 17 which are open to target year round. The lakes in the Northern Kawartha Lakes area have another significant difference when comparing them to the neighboring lakes to the South and that is the presence of Cisco or Lake Herring. What this does is act as a primary food source for the other native species in the lake. Due to the high volume of herring in these lakes and the large amount of forage available for other fish to feed on causes the species in the lake to be extremely healthy and to grow much larger than fish who feed on lakes that have less baitfish. 2B Fishing Guiding Service takes advantage of these trophy fisheries and offers trips for trophy sized Northern Pike for a few weeks in May until Muskie season begins in zone 17 at the beginning of June. The Pike are targeted using primarily large swimbaits. Waterwolf Lures, a local Ontario based company makes a swimbait called the Shadzilla and Shadzilla Jr. These baits are fish catchers! A slow steady retrieve and allowing the bait to swim through the water column is a great way to mimic a lone herring and is typically all that is needed to catch some of these super aggressive, beautiful specimen’s of fish. This season the largest pike boated was just a half inch under 40 inches. Many fish were landed between 35″ – 39″. It’s a great opportunity to target larger than average pike for this area and also allows one to get a good warm-up in for the upcoming Kawartha Lakes muskie season.
