Author Topic: Caught a giant gator today... (Read 3253 times)

SSmokinn SS · « **on:** Mar 03, 2019, 06:58 PM »

Today I took my buddy to my favorite spot. I have never iced fished this lake but wanted to give it a shot because of how much time I spend with open water fishing here. My buddy has had a long trail of bad luck when it comes to giant bass and big pike getting off at the boat.. his personal best pike prior was 38” although I have witnessed several over 40” come off... today, he caught his new personal best in the same spot I caught my personal best pike, 2 years ago... but today was real special.

We had both our 5 year old boys with us. We had tip ups set up with big bait for big pike.. we caught some small ones, and started cutting holes. We found some perch and suddenly my buddy gets slammed. Instantly I say “that’s either a big laker or a pike”. Several minutes into the fight, as I was video recording the tug of war, two DEC officers ride up on snowmobiles. Very cool dudes. They sat and talked with us for a solid 10 minutes while my buddy fought this fish. Finally, he gets it to the hole and I get a glimpse of what it was... I take my jacket off, roll up my sleeve and go shoulder deep into the lake and gaff the gator with my hand... boom. Talk about a exciting moment for all of us. Him mostly. I had a livewell cut in the ice for our bait.. our main priority was pictures and measurements for a replica and then a quick release. We put her in the livewell for a minute so I can recover feeling in my hand. The DEC officers had a big tape measure on them. We weighed him with my buddy’s digital scale and the officer measured her. 41” and just under 20lbs with a 19” girth. We snapped a few more pics and down the hole she went... the officers hung out with us for nearly a hour and we talked. They were very happy to see a big fish like that go back into the lake... and apparently we were the only ones catching fish 🤣.

My son was in the shanty when we were taking pics. He wouldn’t come out lol.

Fifield_Outf · « **Reply #1 on:** Mar 03, 2019, 07:11 PM »

Sweet!! A lot of nice pike being caught this year and released! Congrats to your buddy!

Adkslabslayer · « **Reply #2 on:** Mar 03, 2019, 07:17 PM »

Nice fish and cool story good day on the ice

Hardwater2 · « **Reply #3 on:** Mar 03, 2019, 07:18 PM »

Heck yeah! Great fish, stories and memories!!

fullThrottle · « **Reply #4 on:** Mar 03, 2019, 07:18 PM »

Nice fish !

fishshack · « **Reply #5 on:** Mar 03, 2019, 07:21 PM »

Beauty!!

bart · « **Reply #6 on:** Mar 03, 2019, 07:41 PM »

Very nice pike!

Yotecatcher · « **Reply #7 on:** Mar 03, 2019, 08:21 PM »

Congrats to your buddy. That's a awesome day out on the Hardwater.

esox_xtm · « **Reply #8 on:** Mar 03, 2019, 08:32 PM »

Congrats on a special fish! Release is awesome

Well done!

You guys bring out the jealousy in me

hot tuna · « **Reply #9 on:** Mar 03, 2019, 08:41 PM »

Congratulations, that lake holds nice ones and Ive caught a few.
Access is tough unless you put time in to get there. I see you got a snowmobile, ATV is tough to get where you want to be
Again nice fishing

trapper2000 · « **Reply #10 on:** Mar 03, 2019, 09:11 PM »

very nice fish

SSmokinn SS · « **Reply #11 on:** Mar 03, 2019, 10:29 PM »

Quote from: hot tuna on Mar 03, 2019, 08:41 PM

Congratulations, that lake holds nice ones and Ive caught a few.
Access is tough unless you put time in to get there. I see you got a snowmobile, ATV is tough to get where you want to be
Again nice fishing

That snowmobile is the DEC officers. I have a 6 wheeler ATV we use.

And yep, I have caught a few too.

Fishmarket · « **Reply #12 on:** Mar 03, 2019, 10:42 PM »

Great fish and awesome on the release. The pike that won the Schroon derby this weekend was 43" and over 21 lbs. They brought The fish to weigh in, a jet sled filled with water. Weighed it brought it back to the lake and released it. Pretty awesome stuff!

hunts2long · « **Reply #13 on:** Mar 04, 2019, 06:31 AM »

A very nice pike. Congrats to the fisherman...h2l

fishy1 · « **Reply #14 on:** Mar 04, 2019, 07:00 AM »

congratulations what a gator. we fished the schroon lake derby this past weekend and a kid caught a 20 lb plus gator fishing perch.

Drewski121 · « **Reply #15 on:** Mar 04, 2019, 07:03 AM »

Nice Fish ...DD....

SSmokinn SS · « **Reply #16 on:** Mar 04, 2019, 12:11 PM »

Quote from: Fifield_Outf on Mar 03, 2019, 07:11 PM

Sweet!! A lot of nice pike being caught this year and released! Congrats to your buddy!

You will only see big trophy fish released by myself, or anyone I am affliated with. That’s what replica mounts are for...

SSmokinn SS · « **Reply #17 on:** Mar 04, 2019, 12:13 PM »

Quote from: Fishmarket on Mar 03, 2019, 10:42 PM

Great fish and awesome on the release. The pike that won the Schroon derby this weekend was 43" and over 21 lbs. They brought The fish to weigh in, a jet sled filled with water. Weighed it brought it back to the lake and released it. Pretty awesome stuff!

I heard about that. That’s great they released it. The two DEC officers that hungout with us said it was a beautiful sight to see how we took care of that fish and then released it. Not many people release something as special as that these days...

lowaccord66 · « **Reply #18 on:** Mar 04, 2019, 12:27 PM »

Nice healthy specimen. Congrats.

perch chacer · « **Reply #19 on:** Mar 04, 2019, 03:10 PM »

Great, another one back for future stock. Good job sportsman.

Jlay_upstateny · « **Reply #20 on:** Mar 04, 2019, 04:26 PM »

Awesome fish... I'm sure the Encon officers were happy to see you guys taking good care of a trophy fish like that. Props on the release.

chevy rotbox · « **Reply #21 on:** Mar 04, 2019, 04:45 PM »

very nice

Fifield_Outf · « **Reply #22 on:** Mar 04, 2019, 07:42 PM »

Quote from: SSmokinn SS on Mar 04, 2019, 12:11 PM

You will only see big trophy fish released by myself, or anyone I am affliated with. That’s what replica mounts are for...

I usually catch 6 or more 40 plus inch pike/tiger Muskie through the ice each year. A lot of people would probably mount them but I just take a pic and send them down the hole. If we’re fishing a tournament we have a huge livewell with bubblers going in it to transport the fish, we haven’t lost one yet doing it that way. We caught 2 pike on the weekend 40 inches both where around 18 lbs, one won the tournament.

SSmokinn SS · « **Reply #23 on:** Mar 04, 2019, 08:33 PM »

Good man.

Adironzach · « **Reply #24 on:** Mar 05, 2019, 02:00 AM »

Quote from: SSmokinn SS on Mar 04, 2019, 12:11 PM

You will only see big trophy fish released by myself, or anyone I am affliated with. That’s what replica mounts are for...

SSmokinn SS · « **Reply #25 on:** Mar 06, 2019, 11:15 AM »

Thanks for the support everyone.

My buddy actually got on a plane for Disney yesterday for a week.. he already wants to get back out there the day after he comes back before the season closes lol.

Gravel Lizzard · « **Reply #26 on:** Mar 06, 2019, 12:50 PM »

Great Gator! Congratulations on the fish and the memories with your boys! Again.....thank you for the release!

TiggerTamer · « **Reply #27 on:** Mar 06, 2019, 01:13 PM »

Congrats on the great catch and release. Wish more big esocids were released.

BOCHASER · « **Reply #28 on:** Mar 06, 2019, 04:18 PM »

Great fish and great on the release as well. What is best about all of it is you had kids with you that you took the time to bring them along!

hot tuna · « **Reply #29 on:** Mar 06, 2019, 04:47 PM »

Quote from: BOCHASER on Mar 06, 2019, 04:18 PM

Great fish and great on the release as well. What is best about all of it is you had kids with you that you took the time to bring them along!

X'2 on the kids 👍
I haven't had my grandkids out in awhile as they got busy.

As for the release, good deal on the personal choice.
I see nothing wrong with keep or release, especially pike.
I only keep something I will utilize for consumption. I probably would have kept that fish for fare myself. I typically don't target pike often and that would have been a eater for me.
I do target a lot of trout, salmon, stripers year round. 95 percent get released because I don't care for their taste as frequent meals and don't think they freeze well. I'm not tossing frozen fish in the garbage just to clean the freezer.

Hence the reason no matter species or animal, I only keep what or as much I know we will consume .

News:

Author Topic: Caught a giant gator today... (Read 3253 times)