The best top-water lures for northern pike

More and more, it seems, anglers are discovering that top-water baits can be an excellent choice for catching northern pike.
There are some excellent new northern pike top water lures on the market. We saw a few of these at camp last summer and the fishermen who used them reported great results.
The first lure, however, is an old-time favorite, the Zara Spook.
This lure is basically a floating torpedo that zigs and zags with each flick of your rod tip. It comes in many colours and sizes but for fishing northern pike on Red Lake, don't get too large on your lure size. Four-to-six inches is plenty big to catch pike that can weigh up to 30 pounds. Bigger lures tire you out and catch fewer fish.
The next two lures are very new. They are the Live Target Walking Frog and the Live Target Hollow Body Frog. Live Target is becoming known as a premium-quality lure maker. It's lures are extremely realistic. They are also pricey.
In our experience, the Walking Frog, which is a hard-body lure, worked the best of the two but it might be too early to decide. These lures just recently came on the market. The Hollow Body Frog is soft-bodied. Again, you impart the action to these lures by twitching your rod tip.
The final lure may seem the cheesiest (pun intended). It is the Snag Proof Moss Mouse. We had one person last summer who caught 35 pike in one day on this, basically a rubber mouse. It isn't exactly a top-water lure as it sinks about a foot deep. It is simply reeled back to the boat and has an enticing swimming action.
You won't catch many pike on either the Hollow Body Frog or the Moss Mouse without making a modification to these lures, however. We have discovered that it is practically impossible to hook a northern pike with lures that have the hooks pointed upwards. The pike strike at them, just seldom get hooked. All you have to do is turn the hooks around, so that they point downward. Instantly those strikes turn into fish!
Of course, a lure with hooks protruding downwards is no longer weed-proof but there just doesn't seem to be any alternative. Do you want to catch fish or just not catch weeds?
If you really want a weedless lure, try the Johnson Silver Minnow but always use a trailer on this lure's single hook.

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