Dec. 22–They fight hard, they taste great and they’re usually willing to bite, but northern pike remain among the most overlooked and underappreciated fish among North Dakota anglers who turn up their noses at anything that’s not a walleye or perch.
That’s an unfortunate rap because pike have never been more abundant in the state, and the opportunities for anglers to pursue them have never been better.
“The nice thing with pike is we’ve got pike lakes literally in all four corners of the state,” said Greg Power, fisheries chief for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department in Bismarck. “We’ve got record numbers of lakes and record populations of pike in many of those lakes.”
The surge in pike populations coincides with an ongoing wet cycle that has created dozens of new lakes and inundated vegetation that provides ideal spawning habitat. North Dakota now has more than 400 lakes, Power said, compared with 168 lakes 25 years ago.
About 230 of those lakes are teeming with pike weighing 8 to 10 pounds, Power said, and pike weighing 20 pounds or more can be found in larger bodies of water such as Lake Sakakawea, Lake Darling, Lake Audubon and Devils Lake.
Dwindling appeal
Time was, Power said, when northern pike were the most popular fish among North Dakota anglers, and the pike has been the state fish since 1969. That began to change in the 1970s, when stocking efforts produced strong perch populations in many waters, and walleye numbers exploded in places such as Sakakawea and Devils Lake.
Today, pike rank a distant third on the popularity scale.
“We’re the product — or the failure — of our own success when it comes to pike,” Power said. “There are some counties — Logan, McIntosh even Emmons — there’s traditionally a real strong German population down there that parents and especially grandparents were brought up on pike and suckers. And over the years, I’ve met some of these old-timers ice fishing, and even they now are after the walleyes and perch because they can.
“Meantime, we’ve got these 3,000-acre lakes that have almost untouched pike populations with little interest, and that’s too bad.”
Those pesky Y-bones and the general sliminess of pike are turnoffs for many anglers, Power said, but the bones can be removed, and the slime is gone once the fish are skinned.
“A pike gives you a lot more fillets than a perch is going to give you,” he said. “The opportunity is just off the charts as far as the population goes.”
In an effort to promote this abundant, yet often overlooked species, the North Dakota Game and Fish Department last year opened more than 200 lakes to darkhouse spearing for pike. The result was 12,000 days of ice time and a record spearing harvest of 18,000 pike.
Pro’s perspective
Jason Mitchell, a longtime Devils Lake fishing guide and host of the “Jason Mitchell Outdoors” TV show, said there’s a segment of anglers who target pike — especially in the winter — but he’s seen other times when the fish are unceremoniously tossed on the ice by fishermen seeking walleyes or perch.
That’s not only unethical, it’s illegal.
“I’m glad they’re in the lake,” Mitchell said. “They’re a great eating fish, they’re a fun fish to catch, and they’re a fun fish to target — especially when you start to get some bigger fish. There aren’t too many people who don’t like catching a big fish.”
In the winter, dunking a smelt or herring below a tip-up and waiting for the flag to fly is a popular technique, Mitchell said, but soft plastic swim baits, jigging spoons and airplane jigs also will trigger strikes.
Pike also tend to be most active in the middle of the day when walleyes can be hard to catch.
“There’s times when they don’t bite, but that being said, they are a top of the line predator and they like to eat stuff,” Mitchell said.
Perfect storm
Power said the Game and Fish Department initially stocked most of the closed basins that support pike populations, but fish in many of the state’s newer lakes migrated from connected waters.
Forage abundance — especially larger prey species such as suckers and smelt — is the key to producing trophy-size pike, Power said. Many of the newer lakes are limited to forage such as fathead minnows, which is why pike in such waters rarely exceed 8 to 10 pounds.
Mitchell said East Devils Lake and Stump Lake are two of the better places to target larger pike in eastern North Dakota.
“Stump is kind of a sleeper,” Mitchell said. “They like that deep water, deep timber and cold water, and they love to eat those white bass.”
For the biggest pike, though, Power says the place to watch is Lake Sakakawea and the Missouri River System, trophy fisheries that are especially popular late in the winter and early in the spring.
Pike suffered a setback during the drought years in those areas, Power said, but now are rebounding nicely, and fish from hatches in 2008 and 2009 already weigh as much as 15 pounds.
“We know our numbers are much higher than they were during the initial years of flooding the reservoirs,” Power said. “There’s bound to be some that grow to pretty amazing sizes. They’ll grow fast if conditions are right.”
Severe flooding in 2011 took its toll on the Missouri River’s forage base, Power said, but pike have partially compensated by eating everything else, including small walleyes.
“I think each year you’ll see a few more, but our guess is three to five years from now it’s going to be a peak for trophy pike,” he said.
In the meantime, Power said, anglers who snub pike are missing out.
“You never know when you’ll get a real big one,” he said.
PIKE PIECES
Northern pike facts, trivia and picks:
–North Dakota’s record northern pike weighed 37 pounds, 8 ounces and measured 48 inches and came from Lake Sakakawea in 1968.
–A 1955 article in the Game and Fish Department’s North Dakota Outdoors magazine listed the northern pike as the species of choice among the state’s anglers.
–The North Dakota Game and Fish Department first stocked Devils Lake with northern pike in 1956.
–Greg Power, fisheries chief for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, offers this list of the top state waters for big northern pike: 1. Lake Sakawea; 2. (tie) Lake Oahe/Missouri River and Lake Darling; 3. Lake Audubon. Other big lakes, including Devils Lake, Pipestem Reservoir, Lake Ashtabula and Lake Tschida also rank among the top waters for big pike.
–Jason Mitchell, longtime fishing guide and host of “Jason Mitchell Outdoors,” offers these picks as his five favorite lakes for big pike: 1. Devils Lake; 2. Upper Red Lake (Minnesota); 3. Lake of the Woods (Minnesota, Manitoba, Ontario); 4. Lake Sakakawea; and 5. Fort Peck (Montana).
—
Dokken reports on outdoors. Call him at (701) 780-1148, (800) 477-6572 ext. 1148 or send email to [email protected].