Halloween brings out trick-or-treaters dressed in costume, all with one thing on their minds: Filling a bag or bucket with candy! But for me, my costume always involved a snowmobile suit, gloves and winter boots, and my collection method was a big weedless jig fished along the deep weed line. That’s because my goal was to put big pike in the boat, rather than sweets and treats in a bucket or bag.

Any weedy natural lake hosting sizable northern pike sees a late-fall concentration of the largest pike in the lake once the water temperature dips into the 40s. This occurs along the outer portions of remaining deep, green weed growth rimming the deep basin. Finding areas with the healthiest tall weeds is your first goal. Next, work their outer edges to locate spot-on-the-spot locales that draw big fish in abundance.

These typically occur where points, inside corners or unusually thick and healthy weeds meet a sharp drop to deep water. If the lake has suspended baitfish like ciscoes or smelt—which trophy pike lakes often do—baitfish tend to collect in these areas during their travels—especially with wind blowing into the structure. You often seen suspended fish on your electronics, a short distance outside the weeds.

Big pike may suspend beneath the forage fish, herding them against the structure where they become more vulnerable. But big fish are more likely to simply lie in the weed growth, awaiting prey fish to approach near or penetrate the weeds. Then they pounce, grabbing a meal.

I like to fish a 3/4-ounce or so standup jighead with a line tie at the pointy nose, designed to slip between weeds with minimal hang-ups. Either dress the jig with an 8-inch Reaper tail or other large soft plastic, or hook a 5- to 8-inch chub up through the bottom jaw and out the top of the head. Use your trolling motor to creep along outside the outer weed line, using quartering casts into the weeds to determine their thickness and health—or absence. When your cast lands, let the jig settle on a semi-taut line, watching for your line to jump on a strike.

If the jig simply settles onto weeds, lift your rod tip slightly and reel up slack to tighten your line. If you feel no motion indicating a fish, give the rod tip an upward snap to lift the jig off the weeds, or snap the jig free, breaking leaves/fronds and sending it exploding out of the weeds, which triggers strikes. If it settles again, follow it down with the rod tip until it either settles on weeds again or drops to bottom outside the weeds. Pause momentarily in case a fish is present, but if there’s no bite, reel it back to the boat. Caution: Big pike may follow your jig to the boat and snatch your jig as you lift it out of the water!

If fish activity seems focused more up on the adjacent weed flat, as opposed to along the outer edge, consider switching to other lures like large spinnerbaits, big crankbaits or magnum swimming softbaits to fancast the general area. But for my money, at this time of year, the weed line is where it’s at, and I love the “thunk” of a big pike hammering my jig, and the result hookset stopping my flippin’ stick dead in its tracks, halfway up from the surface.

Twenty- to 30-pound mono or superline does the trick. Be sure to add a 1-pound fluorocarbon leader to your jig to deflect sharp teeth, attached via a barrel swivel to your main line.

While any weedy trophy pike lake hosts these patterns, bays, harbors and connected waters of the Great Lakes hold some real monsters. Catching multiple 15- to 20-pounders in a day is not uncommon, and fish even larger prowl the waters. And nobody—I mean nobody—is out there fishing for them at this time of year. It’s kind of like having all the neighborhood homes to yourself come trick-or-treating—only better.

Looking for some new fishing techniques to try this season? You’ll find plenty of suggestions in every issue of MidWest Outdoors. Subscribe on our website.