SEASONAL CHANGES

Spawning

Sometimes the ice isn't even melted before the pike show up in the areas of slow-moving rivers, marshes, and bays. The intent adults will swim in water just barely deep enough to cover their backs to fulfill their reproduction instincts.

Males and females will swim close together, then roll on their sides. As the female drops the eggs, the male deposits the milt that will fertilize them. There's no nest-building, territorial fighting, or parental care of the eggs. After the females drop the eggs, from five to 60 each time, they move on and the swirl of water created by their tails scatters the eggs. When the eggs touch an underwater plant, they stick like glue.

The chance that a fry will grow to adulthood is very slim. Some studies have shown that 99.8 percent of the eggs will fail to produce a fish that will be big enough to leave the spawning area. Pike compensate for this by laying thousands and thousands of eggs, as many as 9000 eggs for each pound of the female's body weight.

The eggs take from four to 14 days to hatch, depending on how warm the water is. When they emerge from the egg, the young pike stay attached to the vegetation by the adhesive glands in their heads and they feed on the yolk of the egg. But soon they begin feeding on zoo plankton in the pond and at the tender age of two to four weeks, they start eating other fish, including their brothers and sisters.

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