5 expert anglers reveal their secret—and unconventional—tactics for walleye, bass, trout, pike, muskies & channel cats

EXPERT ANGLER: BOB IZUMI

PIKE (AND BASS) TACTIC: STIR THINGS UP

My buddy Bob Izumi, whose Real Fishing Show was once a Saturday TV staple for so many Canadian anglers, picked up this out-of-the-ordinary tactic just after ice out in northern Saskatchewan. The expert angler had caught a few small pike in a big, shallow, grassy, pike-spawning bay when the guide asked him to reel up, then drove the boat right through the weeds and reeds that rimmed the bay.

“It still shocks me to this day,” Izumi says. “I mean, he drove through the reeds around the bay we were fishing, in two feet of water. I remember asking him, ‘What are you doing?’ And he said, ‘I am scaring the pike out of the weeds.’”

They then returned to the middle of the bay and proceeded to load the boat with trophy pike. “He spooked them out of the weeds and made them accessible, so I could cast to them in open water,” Izumi says. “I will never forget that day because it was so unorthodox compared to what I thought you had to do to catch pike.”

Since then, he and his brother, Wayne, have added the trick to their bass-tournament tactics. It’s especially effective in big reservoirs in the U.S. when the hydro gates are closed and there’s no current to turn on the bass. They simply run their bass boat around, stirring up everything with the big engine, then start fishing.

“For years, Wayne made a living fishing near freighters (above), ferries or anywhere there’s a discharge of water from the big boats and prop wash,” Izumi says, chuckling. “He caught big largemouth, smallmouth, even monster pike doing that in Georgian Bay, Lake Ontario, Ontario Place—everywhere he went. He won tournaments catching big fish doing it. It’s amazing how you can use man-made machinery as the fish attractor in a natural setting.”

And such is the power of out-of-left-field tactics.