What do some of you use to fish pike when the Water gets muddy? My favorite lake in Flagstaff, AZ gets like this often and i find the pike cant find my lure very easily, but when they do its usually the big ones that are hungry! i typically run a mepps spinner or a silver spoon. i want to remake an inline for muddy conditions. im thinking about a new spoon and a good color dress or bucktail. i know theres lots of ways to dress a treble hook and a couple different spoons. im thinking about a deep cup colorado spoon to slow it down. maby hammered. stick with silver. mabe like a chartuse, orange or firetiger skirt. What do you guys use? am i on the right track? New to NAFC. this looks like a good community!!!

In muddy water visibility is limited so fish use smell and vibration to find prey. The Colorado should give you plenty of "thump" to attract fish. Another choice might be a stickbait with a good rattle.

In that water condition...I would trade the inline spinner for a conventional spinnerbait...one with a large Colorado blade like you mentioned. Maybe try some bright firetiger color patterns. Also, like PG said, smell is a big factor in that stained water. Try tipping the hook with a minnow head.
                    

Depending on the depth of the water I use Rapala deeptail dancer dives to 30', Rapala husky jerk and the DT series Rapala's. The all have rattles in them and are killers on Pike.

I like to use either red crank bait or jig with a good rattle on it and if you do throw a little craw or other sent on it

Thanks guys! i have a little bit of just about everything here. ill try rigging up a conventional spinner with one of my Yum worms with those whirly tails, heh. id love to pull out my husky jerks but i only have a canoe and the water gets choppy about 80% of the time and makes some hard fishing. that's why i like those spinners. i can cast em far out where it gets deep from the shore. what color Deeptails do you typically throw out. if i get a hold of a boat next time a go out id love to have one of those guys in my arsenal.

You can cast the out and retrieve them at a good speed. You'll know by the feel of the lure. Or you can troll with it. Let it out about 100'.

How far out can you cast yours? the #11 is 3/4 oz, supposedly but ive found the actual weight can vary drastically on lures. My X-rap was the only lure that came out exact. i think i might be able to use a #11 from the shore but i haven't actually looked at one face to face yet. What colors do you use? im thinking between clown, perch, or bleeding tiger. although that hot flash and hot olive look pretty nice too. here in AZ almost all lakes are crystal clear. We usually stick with bait that looks as natural as possible. i usually use silver lures accented with a little color per condition. now im trying to figure out this lake up in the mountains with brown water most of the time. its almost this whole new realm of fishing and its thrown me off big time! Thanks everybody so far!

How far out can you cast yours? the #11 is 3/4 oz, supposedly but ive found the actual weight can vary drastically on lures. My X-rap was the only lure that came out exact. i think i might be able to use a #11 from the shore but i haven't actually looked at one face to face yet. What colors do you use? im thinking between clown, perch, or bleeding tiger. although that hot flash and hot olive look pretty nice too. here in AZ almost all lakes are crystal clear. We usually stick with bait that looks as natural as possible. i usually use silver lures accented with a little color per condition. now im trying to figure out this lake up in the mountains with brown water most of the time. its almost this whole new realm of fishing and its thrown me off big time! Thanks everybody so far!

It's hard to go wrong with firetiger or clown, but in really clear water a perch pattern or something that mimics shad like your silver/XXX might be a good choice. Remember that pike have a relatively large mouth so you don't need to worry about a bait being too large most of the time.

I use purpledesent, clown, firetiger, silverflash. I probably can cast it 75'

Not bad. i could probably get away with that off shore. i poked around in Sportsmans warehouse yesterday(extremely limited supply but its the only thing i have in town). they only had tail dancers. they have no deep rapalas at all. no firetiger ... i was looking forward to that. in TD9's they had blue shad, perch, and hot chub which were descent colors but i always hate it when you walk into a store looking for something and they have everything else besides that. i picked up the perch thinking it might do the trick for muddy waters and still look natural enough for the clearer waters too. i might go back and pick up the blue shad just because i don't have many deep lures and these guys are rated for 15 ft. might work well for Roosevelt lake for bass here in a few months. walmart has all their old stuff on clearance right now. i grabbed a 1/2 oz rattletrap today for 3.50. ive never tried those but i have a feeling that lures going to surprise me. its got a lot o rattle to piss off a pike!

rattle traps will work just fine especially from shore.

A Rattletrap or similar bait is a great all around lure and I am surprised that you didn't have any previously! They come in a variety of sizes and many colors making them suitable for just about any fish that can be caught on a lure. There is a bit of a learning curve to get the hang of depth control but nothing too tough. I bought a kit of similar baits from Cabela's on sale and have been very pleased. The kit included (I think) 10 baits in 5 patterns, 5 of them about 1/2 oz and the others smaller. It ran about $25 on sale.

its just one bait i never got around to trying for some reason. actually any lip less crank for that matter. cant give you a good reason but it got me exited to see those things on clearance! i cant wait to get it wet and all chewed up! my next trip is actually going to be for bass and i think im going to start off with it.

cj: anything that puts off a lot of Vibration and also rattle type baits will work well for Pike in dirty water in clearer water try Spoons one of my favorites is the 5 of diamonds! Hope this helps ya out !

Thanks!!! Yes, because of this thread i will be walking onto this lake with a whole different approach. i have a yallow with 5 of diamonds spoon. caught a few off them. i know its a popular one. kinda always wondered if you threw out say a 6 of diamonds if they'd know it wasn't their card to play on, heh. i actually had this mepps syclops firetiger spoon that Killed it. i lost it to a big one that straightened out my 20 lbd swivel, last time i went there like within the first hour (woah). that was probably the best spoon i had for this water. Has anybody tried a Lazy Ike? an old timer friend from work told me about this lure. he swore by it saying it was this old school lure used to troll for pike. i guess he never fished for pike any other way after he found it. i havent had the opportunity to use it yet but i was strolling in sportsman's warehouse one day and found one on the shelf, all white. i got all exited and bought it. since then ive never seen it on the shelf but this other brand with really weird colors. mine is probably 3 inches or something long it kinda has that tail dancer shape where ive seen a lot of musky cranks looking like.

The Lazy Ike is one of the original 'stickbaits'. There are now countless variations of it available from shallow to deep, floating, suspending and sinking. My great uncle was a big muskie-pike fisherman who made his last trip in 1963. On his passing, my great aunt gave me his tackle box and it was full of Lazy Ikes and spoons, notably the 5 of diamonds and red/white "daredevle" patterns.

Your husky jerk should work. They have rattles (not all) and if it's a sunny day, even with brown water, I would use silver, gold with rattle on a cloudy days. I have had success with a double colorado blade in brown water...