How to Catch The Daredevil That is The Northern Pike

How to Catch The Daredevil That is The Northern Pike

Fishing for Northern Pike can be an enjoyable experience whether you are young, middle-aged or getting on in your former years, and best still, you don’t have to be a beginner or a veteran to learn a few tips that you can take away with you today.

The first thing to discuss is the Northern Pike itself and where you can expect to find them. Usually as the name suggest they are found in the Northern hemisphere, occupying freshwater streams and lakes as they develop into adulthood.

The Northern Pike is instantly recognizable because of its colossal size and as such you should always be careful when handling them as they are not just powerful fish to grip onto but their jaws and sharp teeth can pose serious threats.

Generally speaking Northern Pike tend to hand around weed beds and rocks that provide them a good sizeable shelter. Not only that but these kinds of areas allow them to sneak up on prey and they also have the ability to stay completely still for hours until that opportune moment comes along.

The Best Lure for a Northern Pike

The Best Lure for a Northern Pike

Northern Pikes are quite clever and tend to enjoy playing games with you, as you start fishing for them more you will understand this and see it for yourself. They love to play about with bait, tagging onto it and then letting it go, so a top tip is to leave setting the hook until the pike runs with the bait. In terms of lures to use then you want to look at getting yourself some jerk bait as these tend to work the best from speaking to many keen pike fishermen.

If you don’t have jerk bait handy then the alternative is spoons with minnows at the end of the hook, but you want to really be placing large spoons to be completely effective.

Double Check The Size of Your Bait

Double Check The Size of Your Bait

As we already mentioned the Northern Pike can play havoc with your bait and when you want to catch such a colossal freshwater fish like the Pike then you want to include the right size bait to be successful in your attempts.

At the end of the day why would a fish the size of the Northern Pike even worry about a small to medium sized minnow? They will most likely turn their nose up at it! Instead you want to look as large bait of anything up to 8-inches but no smaller than about 6-inches.

Now, the issue here is that most tackle shops aren’t going to store this size bait so in order to make the most of your Northern Pike fishing experience you are going to have to catch your own bait which will require you buying small tackle box. It may seem like a needless expense and a chore, but trust us you are going to benefit from not just a better and more successful fishing expedition but you will save yourself money as well.

The Ideal Fishing Location

The Ideal Fishing Location

If you are serious about hunting down Northern Pike then you won’t want to spend needless hours roaming around fast moving currents. To locate these big fish you want to look for sheltered areas, not solely because it’s sheltered for protection but because this is where Northern Pike can hang around for hours on end waiting for a prey themselves. Usually your best areas on a lake or river to look at are weeded areas or rocky formations in the river.

The bigger the Northern Pike the more shelter they are going to need when they try to prey on the likes of the Large Mouth Bass, in these cases they will venture too much deeper waters where they can ambush the larger variety of fish in the Northern lakes.

One Last Pointer for Northern Pike

One Last Pointer for Northern Pike

The final section of today’s article we wanted to focus on just how bug these fish can grow to, because we believe that in preparation to catch these monsters you really do need to get an idea on the size. If you go out expecting them to be a mid-sized fish you are going to be surprised, there is a reason to why 8-inch bait is needed for these fellas!

Just under 30 years ago a Northern Pike was caught and it weighed an incredible 55lbs, which roughly works out to be 25KG. That is the weight equivalent of a normal 6 year old child.

Usually you can expect an average of around 2lb – 4lb for Northern Pike which suggests a 20-inch to a 26-inch length, but there are reported of larger pike being caught in the area. If you bag one over 55lbs though you may want to take a photo.

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