Photo by Rob Nye

The sun was high and it was hot. It was skins, not shirts, weather. My brother and I were standing on the torn bench seats of Grandpa's boat hurling steel for northern pike.

With lightweight spinning gear, we drew back and unleashed wide-framed, 1-ounce and bigger spoons. And with me in the stern, I remember reaching back for a world-record cast and instead slapping the unforgiving lure square between my kin's shoulder blades. Ouch. It left a mark - the perfect outline of an Eppinger Daredevle - and invoked a string of expletives. Best I can recall, that's the last spoon I ever used for pike.

In reality, the back-spanking incident didn't end my affair with spoons. Rather, it was trial and error, with alternative means and exposure to a marketplace flooded with new lures that shifted spoons to the backburners. I progressed. But suffice to say, spoons continue to draw ire from pike and should be part of every battery, but not limited to just spoons.

In the quest for knowledge of optional, maybe unusual, presentations for pike, who better to talk to than a hardened bass angler? After all, bassers catch more pike than pike anglers catch pike, albeit inadvertently. Pro-angler Karl Kleman is a different cat, though. Unless combating for slot fish in a bass tournament, he's all about diversity. Kleman takes what the lake gives, and oftentimes that means northerns.

Kleman's confrontation with pike begins early in the spring, just after ice-out. On designated lakes and rivers in some regions, pike season is continuous, which bodes well for engaging pre-spawn and subsequent post-spawn fish. Kleman takes advantage of these provisions, but continues his mission after the regular season opener.

As soon as the final chunk of ice leaves the bays, Kleman arrives. He slinks into both proven and probable bays. To make the grade, Kleman's bays must be large, fairly flat and shallow, weeded and fed by a creek or river. These warm the fastest, carry the most food and double as spawning grounds.

Within such bays, he concentrates on individual features. The tributary area is the first to be scrutinized. Pike spawn there, and so do baitfish, namely suckers and chubs. Weeded humps also hold fish, especially if laden with coontail. And far be it from Kleman to pass on a point, as long as vegetation is present.

So on to the unorthodox part. This bass hound doesn't own a single spoon aside from ice-fishing varieties. Kleman fancies plastic, actually giant tubes, 6- and 8-inch flipping tubes.

Elastic and erratic, tubes look and play like aquatic edibles. And unlike spoons and spinnerbaits, tubes can be fished painstakingly slow, which is fundamental for dealing with springtime lethargy. Kleman fishes Magnum Flipping Tubes and Strike King's Pro-Model Flip-N-Tube. As for color, white is a bonafide pike favorite, as is black with a blue tail, says Kleman. He rigs them weedless on either 4/0 or 5/0 Mustad Ultra Point tube hooks. No additional weight either, because the hook and tube unite to offer the ideal mass for operating in less than 6 feet of water. Yes, as shallow as it sounds, that's where pike cavort from ice-out until early to middle May, sometimes later.

Kleman hurls and maneuvers those tubes as if he were stalking bass. The casts are long and retrieves sluggish. Once the bait splashes down, he pauses and lets it sink a few feet - halfway down - and than reels up to tighten the line. The action he imparts is a duet of twitches and swims. He snaps the tube, which causes it to dart erratically. Tubes never zoom in the same direction or distance twice in a row. Between snaps he maintains tautness and a slow swim.