We took a trip out to the Matanuska Valley in Alaska to try out hand at fishing for pike in a new lake.
We haven't targeted pike specifically before and are excited to catch a few. Our goal for the weekend was to get enough pike to make Travis' grandmothers pike dip recipe!
The day started out slow but Travis caught a few large trout. We didn't catch video of all of the trout but because we were focusing on pike we employed catch and release for the fish we did catch.
After a quick lunch break we were back on the water but the winds picked up speed. Keeping the canoe even on choppy waters was quite the task!
After battling the winds for a few hours we made our way back to the canoe launch. At the launch Travis caught a pike on his first cast!
Pike in Alaska, in most bodys of water, are catch and retain. You cannot put pike back in the water that you took them from because they are considered an invasive species . Pike were introduced illegally as early as the 1950's and quickly changed the balance in the ecosystem. Pike have few predators and predate on native fish.
Pike prefer areas of shallow water with low water movement with vegetation they can hide within. After coming back to the boat launch we caught three northern pike! They weren’t nearly as big as the record holder for this Alaskan lake complex (a whopping 53 inches) but they were more than enough for what we needed.
While out in the canoe helping the unhook my snagged lure one of our pike flopped out of the canoe back into the water! Despite fishing for another hour or so we didn’t catch any more fish. After calling it a day we walked away with two pike and hungry bellies.
Upon arriving home we cleaned the fish and soaked them in a salt and sugar brine before smoking them the next day! We can’t tell you all of Gams secret pike dip recipe now but we are hooked! We’ll definitely be hunting these invasive fish again!