Big pike are apparently cannibals.
The Northern Pike is one of the most ferocious of freshwater fish to be swimming around here in North America. These toothy fish grow to large sizes and put up one heck of a fight, making them one of our favorite species to catch.
Every angler knows these fish are eating machines that gobble up large minnows, bluegill, and other baitfish. They also chow down on things like muskrats and even ducks. It seems their appetite knows no bounds.
Have you ever wondered if pike are hungry enough to chow down on their own kind? Well, YouTuber NDYakAngler got his hands on a swimbait from Europe designed to look like a pike. He takes it out on the lake to see if pike truly do have a cannibalistic side.
If you have fished for pike for any amount of time, the results here are likely not surprising. Whether the pike recognize that swimbait as being a pike or not is a whole other matter. It is more likely the fish are responding to the action more than the overall appearance of the bait. This swimbait has some nice action, and it is easy to see why it was so appealing to the fish.
One thing we cannot believe is the fact that one of these fish took the same lure twice in under 12 minutes. No wonder it did not put up much of a fight the second time around. Talk about an aggressive fish! The second strike was especially exciting to watch such a large fish come in and smack that bait. That is one of the reasons we love battling northern pike so much.
Many species of large predatory fish are notorious cannibals. The food chain has no mercy on many smaller species of fish, even if it is their own species!
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For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
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