Pike gets my lure, and then my finger

You’d think I’d have it figured out by now.

After all, I’ve been catching northern pike for much of my life.

But I’ve only just begun fishing for those toothy critters again this spring and my fingers are already full of holes.

There’s nothing subtle about fishing for northerns. Save your light lines and delicate presentations for trout. Northern pike like big baits that hit the water with a splash.

They actually eat ducks. I thought that was an old wives tale until I found a half-grown mallard inside 30-incher I was cleaning a few years ago.

Northerns are aggressive predators that grow quite large, fight hard, and make fine table fare. What’s not to like? But plenty of anglers turn up their noses at them preferring their sluggish cousin, the walleye, instead.

Northern pike destroy tackle, and require a little extra effort to clean, but they make my drag scream and often make me bleed.

I was fishing a pond on the prairie earlier this week from my kayak. There was little wind, the sun was out, and the pike were hungry as usual. I’d already put a couple in the cooler to eat and didn’t plan to keep any more. Then a big one ate my jointed Rapala and towed me around the pond for a bit before I could land him.

By the time I got him up to the boat there was no lure visible. He’d half-swallowed the Rapala and was bleeding out his gills. I cut the line and put him in the cooler planning to extract the lure when he expired.

About an hour later the fishing had slowed and I figured it was brought on by my change in bait. It was time to get the jointed Rapala back on line.

Unfortunately, the pike wasn’t quite dead. By holding him with my pliers, however, I was able to reach inside his gaping maw and get ahold of the lure. I’d almost worked it free when his mouth snapped shut with my thumb and two fingers inside.

Ouch.

After a couple of tries I pried his mouth open and extracted my bloody digits.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been bitten by a fish and it certainly won’t be the last.

I’m a very slow learner. This could take a while.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]