Saddles are exactly what they sound like. Imagine a sitting on a saddle on a horse. These fishing spots have deeper water with shallower water on two sides of them. These areas can be some of the best spots for finding quality pike in the summer through fall.
Get a Good Map with GPS Coordinates
For many of these saddles, you’re going to want to spend less time finding them and more time fishing them. Get a good gps unit and some good mapping software so you can find these spots quickly.
Fish the Drop-Off
Jigging or using a drop shot rig is a great way to fish the deeper water of the saddle. Some anglers cast heavier lures or troll too. This deeper water along the drop-offs will often hold plenty of different fish and pike will be mixed in too. In murky water, the drop-offs that break from 15 to 25 feet of water may be good places to start, but in clear water, these pike may be in the saddles with water dropping down much deeper.
Target Suspended Pike
Pike will often move from the shallower water into the deeper water. For example, a pike may move up into the shallower water to feed on perch or a smallmouth bass and the bottom is about 8 feet deep. When the pike moves back into deeper water, they will often swim straight out and suspend verse swimming right along the bottom. On some of these saddles, the shallower part of the saddle that is holding fish is around 10 feet deep. You may see several fish suspended over the drop-off 10 feet down over 20 feet of water. You will usually see this when these fish are just moving off the shallower water spot they are searching for food. You don’t have to see these fish on the electronics to target them this way. Just have a fishing rod ready for covering the depths where some suspended pike may be and fan cast the area.
Look for Weeds on the Tops of the Saddles
The saddles usually have a nice stretch of drop-off where you can troll. If you are trolling multiple rods, try trolling one rod up shallower and one down deeper on the drop-offs and you’ll most likely catch more pike or at least find where the better depth is going to be on that particular day. You can also cast some of your lures that don’t dive down as deep near the tops of the saddles to find active pike feeding around the weeds in the shallower water.
