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Northern Pike
Esox Lucieus

• Length: 18 to 30 inches
• Weight: 20 ounces to 8 pounds
• Coloring: dark shades green, through olive green to brown on back and upper sides; lighter on lower sides; cream to milk-white on underside
• Common Names: pike, great northern pike, jack, pickerel
• Found in Lakes: Michigan, Huron, Ontario, Erie and Superior

This long, jut-jawed fish has an image problem. In some regions of Lake Superior, fishermen prize it as a tough and worthy game fish. In other areas, they disdain it as a "slimy snake" and a destroyer of worthier fish.

Without a doubt, the northern pike is a voracious predator -- consuming three to four times its weight during the course of a year. Besides smaller fish, its diet includes frogs, crayfish, small mammals, and birds -- almost anything within range.

Northern pike inhabit protected, weedy bays. After the spring ice melts, they move further into the shallows and marshes to spawn. They retreat to deep, cool waters in summer.

They are usually taken by trolling, though in the heat of summer still-fishing in deeper waters near weed beds is recommended. Unlike the muskellunge, which often breaks the surface in its struggle with the angler, the lean, muscular northern pike fights the hook in deep water. It's not as flashy as the leaping muskie, but just as strong.

Fishermen who land a "northern" harvest a fish of exceptional flavor and texture -- provided the skin is carefully removed before cooking. In the 17th century, Izaak Walton gave a recipe for roast stuffed pike that called for sweet marjoram, pickled oysters, mace, claret wine and anchovies. The result, he claimed, was "too good for any but anglers and honest men."

• Can you tell the difference between a northern pike, a musky, and a tiger musky? Here's how.

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copyright  University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute
Brook Trout illustration copyright 1998 Gina Mikel
Northern pike  photograph (c) Shedd Aquarium (e-mail)
Drawing from Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Last updated 05 February 2002 by Seaman