Aquatic Environment

The northern pike prefers the weedy bays, estuaries, and shoals in lake environments as a spring and fall habitat, and conveniently located deeper water areas for summer. In the littoral, fertile zones, the fish can make good use of the extensive submerged and/or emergent vegetation for protection as well as camouflage when feeding. They prefer weedy areas, too, for spawning in lakes or rivers. The food that the cover offers is very important. This cover must provide nourishment for all sizes of pike. If only minnows or bass are present, the pike population will consist of smaller fish since there is no appropriate forage for intermediate-sized fish.

There's one important requirement, other than weeds, in the fish's habitat: proper temperature. The northern prefers cooler water than most cool-water species and as such you'll be hard pressed to catch a decent-sized pike in shallow, weedy bays in the "dog" days of summer. These fish do not function well in water that's too warm for them, preferring much cooler water than, say, bass. Their peak period is generally the spring and the fall. In warm water, the pike literally stop feeding and the summer fishermen who catch pike by accident often get fish with pronounced shrunken stomachs.

The winter is proof of their preference for cool to cold water. Pike remain active in the winter and while they may not feed as much as they do in the spring and fall, they do continue to feed. Ice fishermen do well on pike in some areas. Most anglers, though, are fair-weather fishermen. The time of year that appeals most to them is between mid-June and mid-September, when the water is most likely to be too warm for pike and as a consequence they have trouble catching large pike. Only small pike occupy warm surface water at warm temperatures.

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