Pair of pike for Fishes of the Week

A pair of northern pike, both caught by ice fishermen on Saturday, earn rare double Fish of the Week honors.

Don Schurr caught his 37.25-inch pike at North Point Marina.

Jim Kachel caught his 39-inch pike from Bangs Lake in Wauconda during the Walk on Water benefit.

FOTW tops the Midwest Fishing Report in the Sun-Times each Wednesday. An extended online version with photos is posted here usually about midnight Tuesday.

Let’s start with Schurr’s account:

This past Saturday 1/31/09, myself, fishing partner and one of my union brothers from Carpenter’s L.U. #58 headed up to North Point Marina to see if we could catch one of those Great Lakes Pike I’ve read about for years. We had 3 tip ups set up with live minnows and 1 tip up with a 6-7″ dead smelt fished off the bottom in about 10 FOW. About 4:00 P.M. this Pike decided to hit the dead smelt. She measured 37 1/4″ long, had a 16 1/8″ girth and weighed 11 1/4lbs. on my Rapala hand held scale. I hope you’ll consider her for FOTW. Thanks, Don Schurr, Chicago P.S. I didn’t measure it but the ice at North Point is so thick I recommend a power auger or big muscles.

I couldn’t resist asking some details from the 40-year-old from the Forest Glen neighborhood some questions and he added this bit of fishing history.

I’ve been fishing the Chicagoland area since1985. Started off catching plump Yellow Bullheads off the Higgins Ave. bridge on the Des Plaines River.

Plump pretty much describes Kachel’s pike. He e-mailed these details with his photo:

Jim Kachel from www.angling101.com wins the 2009 W.O.W Derby with a fat 39″ monster Pike caught on a self developed dead bait rigging system. The bait used was a whole 15″ Spanish Mackeral, and the giant Pike is a Bangs Lake record.

Maybe pike aren’t as forgotten as a Chicago-area fish as I think.

For details on WOW, go to www.icebenefit.com.

E-mail FOTW nominations to outdoordb@sbcglobal.net.

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