Staring Down a Northern Pike

I have some good winter memories of fishing for Northern Pike up in the Baudette Bay. At the time, I don't think the bay was exactly known as a 'fishing hot spot'. More fishermen (at least at the time) would use the bay as a launching point to get their boats out into the Rainy River (or they would simply make the drive out to Lake of the Woods; both the river and the lake were far more likely to yield the 'much more desirable' walleye).

I remember one winter of fishing with my tip-ups, which yielded a couple of good-sized pike that I pulled through the ice. My bait was something frozen, 6-inches or so; most of the time I used frozen smelt that was sold specifically as bait. On one particular adventure, the two pike that I pulled through the ice were 33 and 36 inches; they put up a good fight to be brought through the hole. (I loved to listen to the sound of the tip-up line whirring as these fish took the bait; it was a good sign that you had something nice on the other side of the ice.) As fun as it was to catch these pike, I had to throw them both back; they both fell within the 30-40 inch 'catch-and-release window' that was being enforced at the time. Still, catching them is a good memory.

I only happened to 'catch' the pike below with my Canon XTi, while walking around at a zoo. Coming across this picture file (JPEG) the other day, I sent it through Photomatix. First below is the unedited file, followed by the Photomatix 5 version. (As you can see, I am also going to have to learn how to use the kind of photo editing software that will take all the dust and dirt and such off of the aquarium glass....)