Ah dah fishing trip with dah kid; Great memories Your headin up right at the slow time of year fur fishin everyone knows that the fish lose their teeth in August (they used to actually think that, eh?)
Get a thermometer if you can find one to check surface temps, and also get a simple fish finder, both essential tools of the hunt. Also a good pair of leather or fish handling gloves will save your hands from a pike that has inhaled the hook; hence a long nosed longer the better pliers are very helpful tools. Pickerel tend to suspend from the bottom in deeper water and move shallow as the daylight dwindles they also like to congregate at stream inlets and river mouths as the light gets lower. They prefer extremely slow delivery the slower the better often hard to control the boat if there is any breeze but make it slow trying to catch them. Use very small snap swivels no leaders please with zero shine I buy black ones and connect them to repalla shad raps, or pencil type plugs with steady side to side motion in the water. The Smaller the lure the bette depending upon the weather, in good old silver and grey, but sometimes gold and black and in brighter conditions, blue and silver colors.
If you find a school try and do large figure 8 movements over the school which can and will move around on you as you do the movements. Some throw a bleach bottle out with rope anchor to mark the spot expect others to come over and fish your hole if you do tha cause it is a dead giveaway you found some fish. Expect hits on the turns trolling because the lures slow down even more on those.
They also respond well to jigging if you can teach your son how to do that it takes the right touch as walleye are light hitters and tend to haul in like old shoes when you do hook them. Casting with a purple or white or yellow rubber tail jig with a side spinner cranked in very slowly will often get the buggers to give a go at it cast downstream if there is a current and retrieve very very slowly. Or use minnows and do the same.
Pike are just the opposite. They can hit well in broad daylight though in very warm water they will hit best as the shadows get long, and or in the early morning. Look for structure up and down bottom, rock piles, and rock faces that are deep to the shore pike love to ambush from the deep on anything moving overhead. Use bigger lures for pike jointed and action lures of nearly any type. Use a long leader with the pike unless the water is crystal clear when long leaders will cut the number of hits down to nearly nothing. Expect to lose baits and fish with just a snap swivel though because pike have very sharp teeth and will scissor the line in some attacks. Those teeth are why a long nosed plier is also very helpful sticking your hand down in mr toothy’s mouth can cause some bloodletting of your own kind. A good pair of fish gloves or leather work gloves will also let you hold the pike by his lip and not tear up your thumbs. Some pike will inhale the hook and the latter will help get them out without you getting torn up with it. I squeeze the barbs right down on the hooks so that unhooking is far easier to do not to mention setting the hook when you do hook a dandy and as long as you don’t slack the line, you will lose very few fish as a result of it.
Fish fast for pike…the faster the better. Unlike walleye, they tend to hang out in their own territory, and though early fishing can bring them on like packs of wolves, later fishing will find them loners not tolerant of other similar fish close by so fish large, and fast. You don’t need long line out (25 feet is plenty) for pike unlike walleye which will hit once and that’s it pike will keep coming back til they either scissor your line off, or you catch them. Long fast trolls are the order of the day nearly wake speed. 4-5 mph sometimes is necessary produce when nothing else will. Use the sounder to go over structure that you find and if the water is very warm work the shadows along shore and rock faces and submerged brush piles or logs that like to eat lures if you hook them.
If all else fails and you want that boy to hook a fish get a few minnows and use a bare hook and a sinker placed a foot above the hook and hook the minnow below the dorsal fine and toss it out in a likely spot where it just looks pikey and use a bobber. Put out several polls and watch for the action to begin in the early morning or late afternoon.
Okay, my fingers are getting tired good luck and I hope you find some good fishing as there is nothing that lights a kids face up quite like a fish on the end of a rod it is something BOTH of you will remember for life.
Try and find as cool of water as you can. Walleye prefer high 50’s to low 60’s and pike like low 60’s to low 70’s Above those numbers expect the fishing to slow down. If it rains, contrary to popular belief, do something else and if you can, pick a steady barometer or within 12 hours of a front moving through great if a cold front hits while you are there do yourself a favor and go blueberry picking it will be far more fruitful (no pun intended).
