Tim Hicks will soon have mounts of two Idaho state-record northern pike displayed in his house.
He plans to have a replica mount of the 49.75-inch pike he caught on June 13, on Lake Pend Oreille, which set the state’s catch-and-release state record.
He will display his catch next to the 38-pound, 9-ounce, northern his father Dennis caught in 1992 on Coeur d’Alene Lake which was a state record at the time.
Yeah, you could say that a passion for fishing for northern pike runs in the family.
“I’ve fished for northern pike my whole life here in Idaho,” Hicks told Wired2Fish. “They get overshadowed by the trout and salmon, but we have some big northerns here, too.”
Hicks landed one of them on June 13 while fishing with his brother in a pike tournament. As he worked a flutter spoon along a deep weed line, he got a jolting strike. Then the fight was on.
When Hicks got the pike to the surface and his brother Steve netted it, he knew he had a special fish. But he wasn’t envisioning a state record at first.
The brothers measured the huge pike and went through the process of verifying the fish. Later, they found that it broke the former catch-and-release state record by only three-quarters of an inch.
“My fish had just spawned — its tail was all torn up — so it didn’t fight as hard as it would have at other times of the year,” Hicks said. “That helped.”
For Hicks, 44, it was the catch of a lifetime. He had fished the massive Lake Pend Oreille for the past 10 years, and he knew the lake held some massive pike.
At a place better-known for its trophy fishing for Kamloops rainbow trout, bull trout, mackinaws (lake trout), and bull trout, the northern pike is somewhat of a new fishery.
No one knows for sure how the species, often associated with Canada and the northern U.S., got into the lake.
They weren’t stocked by Idaho Fish and Game. Biologists say they probably made their way from the Pend Oreille River and the upstream chain of lakes before moving into Lake Pend Oreille and flourishing in the weedy bays.
The pike obviously like their new home, establishing a population so large that biologists worry about their effect on native species.
That’s why northern pike are considered an invasive species at Pend Oreille, with liberal regulations in place. There are no size or creel limits, and biologists encourage anglers to take what they catch.
Still, that hasn’t had much of an impact on the population, Hicks said. He and others still find enough pike to pursue when they fish the 92,764-acre lake in northern Idaho.
“I’ve been fishing Pend Oreille since the northerns really took hold about 10 years ago.” Hicks told Wired2Fish. “I’ve caught some big fish but nothing like this one.”
He fishes with a 7-foot-6 G. Loomis baitcasting rod and a Shimano Curado reel spooled with 15-pound test Maxima line and an 80-pound test fluorocarbon leader.
“April through June and October and November are our best times for northern fishing,” he said. “That’s when the big ones will usually be most active.”
