It has been many years since I took up a spear but I certainly do remember the fun in the sport. Of course once you become proficient in creek selection and spear chucking, the rewards are good fodder on the table. Some people may squint at the thoughts of a pike feast but lemme tell ya.... Pike is definitely one of the most delicate tasting fishes on the table. When cooked, it's flesh is firm, white and quite pleasing to the palate. Of course the bones have to be worked around. Pike are well know for its large bones. With the bones being so huge, they are quite easy to remove during a feast.
Stream, creek and ditch selection are quite easy once you check out a few areas. No matter which one you decide to spear on remember that the ditch or stream must have access to the open waters of the lake or main river. Dover township is riddled with good looking ditches but if you follow them for any distance, you will likely find a pumphouse situated on it. There is no sense in attempting to spear fish upstream of a pumphouse... the fish just cant get around them. Concentrate your efforts on ditches and creeks that have open water access. Many of ditches are open to Mitchell's bay, Lake St Clair and the St Clair river. Check out the good looking ones in Dover, Sombra and Moore townships.
Good water clarity is only a benefit to the spearer because you can see the fish. Unfortunately, clear water makes the fish spooky and closing in on them may be a disadvantage in clear waters. Look for the muddied or stained stuff. Depth isn't really important. As a matter of fact spearing fish in shallow waters is a lot easier than trying to "run one though" in the deep.
One of the easiest tactics is for the spearer(s) to walk along the sides of the ditch watching the waters. This can be done a lone or with a friend who is on the opposite side. Don't enter or wade the water, it will give pike advanced warning of your presence. Stay on shore. With this tactic, you had better be quick with the spear. Fish can explode out of seemingly no-where and scare hell out of you. By the time you recover for a lancing, Mr Pike is gone. You will get used to this in time.
One tactic that we did do better on was to put two walkers on a ditch with spears and have two others waiting in ambush slightly ahead. If there is a slight narrowing of the ditch or stream, that was considered a good ambush point. Very effective! If the walkers didn't hit the fish, the ambushers usually took them.
Many times you will never see the fish but merely a wake in the water as the fish swims away. A common mistake I used to make was to throw or lunge the spear at the wake. WRONG! The wake is behind the fish. You have to lunge ahead of the wake to hit home. There is probably something in the laws that makes that "blind spearing" illegal because you should be sure that it is a Pike your spearing not something else. We accidentally took a few suckers and carp this way thinking the wakes were made by a pike, but the course fish are legal to spear as well.
Equipment? You will need a current Resident Fishing Licence, set of waders, a stringer to carry your fish and a good spear. Don't go sissy on the spear. Get one that is fairly large. Attach it SECURELY to an 8 foot or longer pole. I say securely because this one time.... oh I don't have room to tell you that tale today.
