101_1982

Comment

Comment by Jim Watts on August 17, 2009 at 8:39am

I was a Largemouth, not a Perch. There are GIANT perch in the lake the Pike came from though. I have found small Pike inside other pike, but never a legal size Largemouth!. IT obviously knows how to fish better than we do. We only seem to catch undersized bass on that lake.

Comment by Patrick "Bullworm" Olson on August 17, 2009 at 5:26am

Pike are notorious for eating prey half their size. They are or can be cannibals too! That is a huge perch, that it ate! Very cool photo!

Comment by Jim Watts on August 16, 2009 at 4:28pm

The Pike was speared last Winter. As far as egg development, I have no idea. The following I found online...Female pike may fail to shed their eggs when there are large temperature fluctuations during the spring. Unlike some other coarse fish they appear to be incapable or re-absorbing these eggs - which can constitute 20% of their body weight - and by early summer these fish often die.

Fertilised pike eggs hatch after 20-24 days but fry survival may be very low. For example, in one study of 1.25 million eggs produced 180 pike lived to one year of age, fifty lived to two years, 39 to 3 years, 20 to 4 years and only nine survived to five years of age.

Comment by Jim Gronaw on August 16, 2009 at 3:50pm

Hey Jim...was the pike caught recently? Do they have egg developement in late summer?