Early June, on lower Toobally Lake in the Yukon, a rare wave of honesty swept over me as I rescued another modest-sized pike from my leader. This one rolled and coiled the wire around his face and pectoral fins. Each pike, after a few bursts of power, does the same thing: rolls up the leader. They nearly volunteer themselves. And to think I was raised to be terrified of them. When I was a paperboy in Newport News, Virginia, stories circulated about ducklings and rodents being picked off by non-native pike that had been stocked for unknown reasons in the city reservoir. In graduate school, Ted Hughes’ poem, “Pike,” was required reading. “Killers from the egg; malevolent grin,” he wrote. Some call them “water wolves.” But they are often not what we say they are.
Though I brought gloves and long-handled pliers to keep clear of teeth, I learned after catching a few that the northern pike is its own worst enemy. After a visual, heart-stopping strike, a canine-like head thrashing, and maybe a brief run toward the downed logs from where it emerged, this fish has a habit of alligatorrolling—a species flaw. Armed with my 9-weight and a hefty leader, I was ready for a fight. But nearly every encounter deteriorated into a rescue mission.
With an oak paddle, I maneuvered into the cove where my fish spun on the surface. So much pollen had been blown from fir trees that the jade-colored pike became ringed in a halo of yellow. The beauty was staggering, as was my fear that each rolling fish would kill itself without a quick intervention.
Grizzly Creek Lodge, my gracious host for the week, has a well-established no-kill policy. In fact, lodge owner David O’Farrell inspected my streamer barbs and asked me to further mash them down.
