TR: In Search of the Water Wolf

**Optimus Prime** · 07-10-2008, 04:27 PM

Since our King Salmon run has been so poor, and because I have 50lbs left over from last season, I decided that I wouldn't fish for Kings this year.

So on Tuesday evening, a buddy of mine and I loaded up in the Super Cub and headed out to for some Pike. And boy did we find some pike.

Action started off slow, but picked up within an hour, after that, it was every cast. We fished for about 4 hours and landed almost 70 pike. Our largest one was 31 inches and had a 14 incher in his belly, the rest were around 22, we had another larger one, but didn't make into the net. Anyway, here are the pics....

**mushmouth** · 07-10-2008, 06:35 PM

Sounds like fun, thanks for sharing. How do you cook pike?? I'd like to start harvesting some of those bastards from my local pond and never really thought about eating them...

**schwerty** · 07-10-2008, 07:33 PM

Originally Posted by mushmouth

Sounds like fun, thanks for sharing. How do you cook pike?? I'd like to start harvesting some of those bastards from my local pond and never really thought about eating them...

Bread em and fry em.

**Happy Fun Ball** · 07-11-2008, 05:42 AM

Pickled pike is some tasty fish. Frying them is also very good. Most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a pike and a walleye. At least the fish around here anyway.

**72Twenty** · 07-11-2008, 10:55 AM

I thought the "wolf" was the taimen.

**MakersTeleMark** · 07-11-2008, 11:22 AM

Originally Posted by Optimus Prime

We fished for about 4 hours and landed almost 70 pike.

Impressive. Way to kill those trout munchers. While pike are intimidating fish, they do eat very well. Careful filleting is the key.

**Optimus Prime** · 07-11-2008, 12:15 PM

70 fish in four hours for two guys is roughly 9 fish an hour....I've done better on this lake, but considering the conditions and the time frame we were working with, I'm not disappointed at all.

Pike is up there on my list of favorite fish, both to catch and eat, baked, fried, pickled, and I've even smoked some (gotta work on this though) A lot of people turn there nose at it, but its obvious they haven't tried it.

Boneless fillets and chunks are fairly easy if you have a sharp knife and a little time.....

**mushmouth** · 07-11-2008, 01:26 PM

How small can they be and still yield some decent meat?

**Optimus Prime** · 07-11-2008, 01:34 PM

I usually dont' keep anything under 20 inches, smaller than that and it becomes tedious work, all of the smaller ones in the above pic are 20-22 inches or "hammer handle" size. After we cleaned them and I vac-packed them, there was 13lbs of meat total.

Alaska has very few regs on pike, so I have a lot of freedom to take home the ones I want, when growing up in wisconsin, some of the local regs wouldn't alllow you to keep anyting smaller then 36 or 40 inches! So it depends on where you live.

Craven Morehead · 07-11-2008, 03:50 PM

I like saving some pike slime for my pancakes........yum.

**Alkasquawlik** · 07-13-2008, 06:00 PM

for the small pikes, I like to head and gut and then b-b-q whole with lemon and herbs stuffed in the belly. then I makes surecook it all the way through so that you can pull out the meat right off the bone, leaving most of the spine intact.

nice pikes btw. did you head out to anderson?