Northern Pike

Name:

Northern Pike

Characteristics:

The northern pike can be easily identified by its long slender body with light spots on a darker greenish background. The upper part of the fish is dark green, becoming lighter, almost milk-white, along the belly. A prominent feature of the pike if its very large mouth with many teeth, and the dorsal fin located far to the back of the body.

Fish Habits:

Northern pike spawn in April and early May. Spawning occurs in shallow, slow waters of heavily vegetated areas in rivers, marshes, and bays of lakes. A larger female is usually attended by one or two smaller males. Only a few eggs are laid at a time so an individual fish spawns for several days. The eggs are scattered at random and adhere to the vegetation. Fertile eggs will hatch in four or five days.

The young pike grow rapidly during their first summer. Juvenile fish eat aquatic insects until they are two inches long, and begin feeding on other fish.

Fishing Tactics:

Northern pike are a predatory fish. They feed primarily on other fish, and are known to eat frogs, mice, young muskrats and ducklings.

Morning is considered one of the better fishing periods as pike are mainly daylight feeders. Medium and shallow-running lures, jigs or large bait are generally used. Many types of artificial lures will work. Jigging a spoon or hook is also an effective way of taking pike through the ice.

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Effective methods for catching this hard-fighting fish include dead baits, live baits and lure fishing. Pike can easily be damaged when handled since they are not as robust as their reputation would suggest. Colour of lure can be influenced by water clarity and weather conditions.

Care for the pike should be the pike angler's utmost concern. The formerly recommended practice of grasping a pike by its eye sockets (tragically interpreted as "its eyes") resulted in countless released pike that quickly died from inability to see prey any longer. The current recommended method of grasping pike is to close the hand firmly over the gill covers, and to make the period of handling the pike as short as possible before release.

A practice known as 'gut hooking' was previously widely used in catching pike. Upon taking the bait the pike will hold it for a short time in its mouth as it moves off. The pike will then, usually, turn the bait in its mouth so that it sits in alignment with the pike's throat to ease swallowing. It is recommended that when pike fishing the process is not allowed to go this far and a strike is recommended as soon as a bite is indicated. Otherwise what is known as 'gut hooking' will result which will normally kill or seriously injure the fish. Other methods of catching and handing pike which are now frowned upon are the gaff and the gag. The gaff is a metal hook on the end of a pole used to hook through the fish's body in place of a more humane landing net. A gag is a device for holding open the pike's mouth whilst unhooking. These are now illegal as they put a huge amount of pressure on a pike's jaw thus causing irreparable damage.

Tips:
Northern pike reproduce over aquatic vegetation so concentrate effort in these areas.

Use a heavy monofilament or braided fishing line or steel leader to prevent pike from breaking the line.

Use bright, flashy, and noisy lures to attract the attention of Northern Pike.

Pike have a slime coat over their scales and removal of the slime coat make the fish more susceptible to bacterial infections. To remove hooks, place your fingers under the gill cover and slide them toward the mouth till you feel the jaw bone, and then lift the fish slightly, opening the mouth revealing the hooks. If necessary for smaller fish, a wet cloth can be used to wrap around the fish to improve a body grip.

Tackle:
Medium weight spinning or baitcasting tackle with 10 pound test line for fishing live bait and a 6’ -7’ long medium/heavy rod with 12-16 pound test line for fishing crankbaits or trolling.

Distribution:

The big pike species are native to the Palearctic and Nearctic ecozones, ranging across northern North America and from Western Europe to Siberia in Eurasia. They have been found in many urban lakes in Western Europe, reported to be in the Rostrum (Lucerne) and the Serpentine, (London).