LAKE GEORGE — Like any promising big game hunt, it began with a pattern and a plan. Difference was, this one played out on water, not in a forest, and if we weren’t careful, the hunted might bite back.
Here we were, smack in the middle of Colorado’s rifle season, indulging a quick midweek break from the heavy lifting for a different sort of trophy hunt, one increasingly popular among anglers willing to risk a bit of frostbite to put some serious measurements on the wall.
The truck thermometer blinked 14 degrees when the three of us joined Nathan Zelinsky on Wednesday in South Park, scarcely a conventional climate in which to tackle a fish that balances on the border as a warmwater species.
But notions are changing, and quickly, regarding tactics for trophy northern pike. In addition to the traditional May-June time frame popular among most anglers, truly serious pike hunters now gravitate toward late autumn as the best opportunity to nab one of the really big girls.
Zelinsky, a Bailey-based guide (303-947-8327) who counts pike among his several target species, has it figured like this:
“When the water temperature starts to cool, the weeds collapse and pike no longer can hide in the weeds to ambush food,” said Zelinsky, who has adapted an unusual method to catch remarkable numbers of trophy-sized pike. “When that happens, they’re forced out to feed in open water.”
Presto. Change-o. The usual tactics most anglers — spin or fly — normally use for water wolves aren’t as valid. Enter Zelinsky and a long-line, planer-board technique that exposes his lures to a maximum number of fish, often big ones.
This works best during May and October, when the weeds are down and water temperature, 46 to 53 degrees, is amenable to feeding activity.
“I’ve seen larger fish that I catch early in the cycle gain 5 to 7 pounds when I catch them again a month later,” he says of this feeding frenzy.
This autumn, the feast could last an extra couple weeks because water temp is lingering higher than usual. All this suits Zelinsky — who with deadeye wife Stephanie, put two bull elk in the freezer during archery season — just fine. He’s now free to exercise his pike passion, either at Spinney or Elevenmile reservoirs, each with lots of fish of all sizes.
The drill works like this: depending upon the number of anglers in the boat, he sets up several rods whose terminal offering is a 7-inch original Rapala hand-painted to mimic the most likely pike luncheon items.
It’s what’s in between that makes things work. Trolling over a depth of approximately 15 feet, Zelinsky positions his lures at varying lengths behind planer boards, thus spacing lures from 6 1/2 to 11 feet beneath the surface. Should a certain depth begin to score, he’ll adjust his pattern accordingly.
He next staggers the distance from boat to board, creating a wide spread out from either side of the boat, exposing the offerings to a maximum number of undisturbed fish.
Not everyone will embrace this stylized form of fishing. But when it comes to putting teeth in the boat, it’s hard to beat.
On Wednesday, Zelinsky started off at Spinney, where clients have boated most of the 53 pike over 40 inches thus far in 2008. After five straight days of hot, trouble-free action at this site, the angling gods turned angry. Overnight wind stirred up clumps of floating vegetation, a pestilence for planer boards.
Seldom at a loss, he quickly motored to the dock, sped the 10 miles to Elevenmile and was back in business before the boat motor cooled down.
“The kind of day I’m looking for is 15 total fish, including a couple over 40 inches,” said Zelinsky, whose all-time biggest are a 29-pounder in 2006 at Elevenmile and a 28 1/2-pounder this May at Spinney.
He figures he’ll catch about 30 more of bragging size before this extended season ends. It’s the sort of thing one might expect from a man with a plan.
Charlie Meyers: 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com
