North for Northerns

North Idaho and Montana 2025

Just like last year, Katie and I drove north in early May, hoping to repeat and fine-tune the big pike catching we did the previous year. This time, we'd start in Montana and work our way south as the trip progressed. The first day of driving was long, and by dark we had a very temporary road-side camp set up in the first fishing location. 

The first lake we tried, we had only fished one other time, producing incredible pike fishing in 2023. However, the lake level was lower than we wanted and the spot we had caught pike last time was only 2-3 feet deep and muddy. We had a couple pike encounters at the boat-side and landed a few smallies though. We explored a couple other areas of the lake and had a good time on our first day on the water.

Setting up camp in a new location, we settled in for several days of fishing on one of our favorite pieces of water, as well as a new one. We decided to head to the new spot first. We launched the boat and immediately drifted into water that just screamed pike. Even though I had other spots further away I wanted to check out, we couldn't pass up the water my gut was telling me we should try. 

With the boat ramp only 50 yards away, we began casting and immediately were into pike. 

After several pike, we left that area and began to explore. The water looked good in some other places, but after several hours and very little pike action, we returned to the spot near the boat ramp. Fishing picked up again and we finished the day with many more pike!

The spot didn't produce any giants, but respectable and spunky fish. The next couple days we fished some familiar spots. Fishing was decent and several more pike were landed.

 

We landed a decent number of medium-sized pike the first few days, but the big girls eluded us. We saw a couple but they didn't want to play. We relocated camp back to Idaho and further south for the next segment of our trip.

The next lake we tried had very clear water and excellent weed beds. You could see down nearly 15 feet and several times we could see huge pike following our flies. We didn't hook up with any of the giants, but we caught a few smaller pike and some nice crappie and bluegill.

We moved camp once again and settled into one of our favorite areas, where lots of different lakes could be accessed by boat. 

The next few days were filled with lots of fun outings on the water and some nice bike rides. 

We found lots of nice crappie too!

The water was a few degrees warmer than the previous year, and it seemed to make all the difference in not finding big pike. Pike were caught here and there on the usual streamers, but oddly enough, the largest pike were caught on our balanced minnows while crappie fishing. 

The balanced minnow seems to catch everything that swims!

We also caught quite few really nice smallmouth bass!

We decided to continue south on our journey towards home and stop at one last spot; a world renowned smallmouth fishery. We had never fished here and figured it was worth a try. We zipped up the lake to the first point and began fishing with... you guessed it: balanced flies. It took Katie all of 5 minutes to hook into a giant smallmouth. She lost the fish but it gave us lots of optimism for the day and half to come. That first evening we caught 2 giants and lots of small bass.  

We fished most of the next day and caught babies on nearly every cast with the occasional toad mixed in. This was a great last stop on our trip! Katie even caught a few slimy trout. 

The annual pike trip up north had come to a close. Another successful year with lots of fish and lots of fun. We're still chasing that 40 inch pike so stayed tuned for 2026!