Pike Seasonal Movements (4 of 14)

Male 1: I see why it's important to have a weedless fly here. That was deep, that fly was deep on that.

Male 2: 2: And moving, huh?

Male 1: Not moving that fast. Let's see what we got here. It's always fun when it comes up from the depths; you never know what you're going to have. Smaller pike. Even a small pike holds line and gives you a pretty good tussle.

They're a great fly rod to fish. They're aggressive, they're cool looking, they're almost prehistoric looking. Not something you'd expect to find in fresh water all the time. We're going to need pliers for this one because he's deep. You want to nut this one? You want a pit tag? It's younger one, I might not.

Male 2: It probably won't have a tag.

Male 1: Pike are always fun on the fly rod.

Male 2: I join my friend, David Philip, on a lake near Kingston, Ontario, to fly fish for midsummer pike. Dave is a biologist doing research on pike with Queen's University.

David: Through our long-term studies on pike behavior at the Queen's University's Biological Station, we've found that pike set up very distinct summer home ranges. That is they overwinter in a neighboring lake, migrate into this lake for the summer, and go to the same places year-after-year. When we capture pike, we have this long-term study. When we capture pike year-after-year, we capture them in almost the exact same area. Usually within a 10 meter radius of where we captured them the year before, maybe 5 years before that. There are some places in the lakes and certainly in rivers too, that are very good for pike to hang out and ambush prey. If you catch a pike in one year, probably that will be an excellent spot the next year, as well.