What are large norther pikes main diet or preferred food.
pike diet.
Started by
Guest_Sunfish catcher 321_*
, Jul 01 2014 02:08 PM
9 replies to this topic
#4
Guest_butch_*
Guest_butch_*
-
- Guests
Posted 14 July 2014 - 01:23 PM
Mostly fishes, but leeches, crayfish and frogs are important forage for pikes depends on the season. In Aug, pikes will feeding on frogs heavily, especially when they emerged recently from the metamorphosis. In some lakes, pikes will feeding on leeches during late summer/early fall months. Pikes in the rivers, it seems that they loved crayfish and I always found the crayfish parts in the stomach contents after I caught the pikes for supper. In my experience its depend on what's most common forage in a specific lake. In some lakes where fathead minnows can be overabundant that even a monster pike can get fat on them solely. In some lakes that holds eelpout populations, pikes will feeding on YOY eelpouts in late summer when the YOY eelpouts are migrating from shallow parts to deeper parts. Some lakes that doesn't have enough soft rayed fishes so the pikes will focus on either sunfish (mostly smaller bluegills or orange spotted) or bullheads. Perch, smelt, ciscoes, shiners, chubs, suckers, shads and goldeye/mooneye are preferred diet for larger northerns.
#6
littlen
-
- NANFA Member
- Washington, D.C.
Posted 16 July 2014 - 12:09 PM
This might be the truest place to say, whatever fits in their mouth! (And often, an attempt at things that don't fit).
If I remember correctly, there might be a thread or two about someone getting a pike or pickerel trained to take pellets. Doable with a decent amount of patience.
If I remember correctly, there might be a thread or two about someone getting a pike or pickerel trained to take pellets. Doable with a decent amount of patience.
Nick L.
#10
Pike
-
- NANFA Member
- New Hampshire
Posted 24 June 2023 - 08:11 PM
I grew up on the Lake St-Francis portion of the St-Lawrence River in Canada. The Northern Pike there fed almost exclusively on Yellow Perch. They absolutely adored them. That’s all we ever found in the stomachs of the fish we caught. I’m sure they fed on other fish/frogs/ducklings/etc, but there were so many Yellow Perch that the adults didn’t seem to go after anything else.
Reply to this topic
1 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users
NANFA Youtube Channel 
