Lothar Louis caught this 55-pound 1-ounce IGFA All-Tackle World Record pike from Lake Grefeern, Germany, in 1986. Peter Dubuc’s giant 46-pound 2-ouncer caught in 1940 from New York’s Great Sacandaga Lake is widely recognized as the North American record.
September 10, 2024
By Steve Ryan
Pike are magnificent creatures. Having spent a considerable amount of time pursuing them across the United States, Canada, and beyond, my appreciation for them grows with each new encounter. Expectations continue to grow as fresh inquiries lead to new waters for trophy pike. When the topic of catching a world-record pike gets raised, things get complicated in a hurry.
Pike anglers marvel at Peter Dubuc’s giant 46-pound 2-ounce record caught in 1940 from New York’s Great Sacandaga Lake . This fish is widely recognized as the North American record pike—a record that has stood for over 80 years. Pike are not simply an American thing, however. They are also a European, Scandinavian, Russian and Siberian thing, and Dubuc’s catch would not even crack the top-50 list of biggest pike recorded from Europe.
Regrettably, for truly giant pike, North America simply cannot hold a candle to Europe. As painful as it might be, North America has never produced a pike in the same category as the IGFA All-Tackle World Record 55-pound 1-ounce giant caught from Germany in 1986. Additionally, multiple pike of nearly 70 pounds have been documented from Europe, along with more than a dozen other pike that would top the IGFA record. These fish have all passed the strict scrutiny of Europe’s resident pike detective, Jan “The Pike Ferret” Eggers. As recently as last winter, two pike topping the 50-pound mark were caught and released in Italy.
Since beating Dubuc’s 46-pound 2-ounce trophy seems challenging enough, let’s stick with this benchmark and ignore what lurks on the other side of the big pond, so to speak. Putting things in perspective, catching a 42- to 44-inch pike that weighs 20 to 24 pounds is fairly difficult in most of the lower 48 states. North of the U.S. border, pike grow bigger, but they stall out at around 47 to 48 inches and are often of the long and lean variety. Sure, a few pike topping 50 inches are caught throughout North America each year, but few crack that elusive 30-pound mark and next to none register in excess of 35 pounds on a certified scale. State and provincial records support this reality.
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A look at various state records across the country is revealing. Of the 50 states, 11 have no record status for pike—either because no pike exist in the state or they’re considered an invasive species and not subject to record-keeping. Of the 39 remaining states, only 11 have state records topping 35 pounds. Just two of those records were set in the last 35 years and the prominent ones set more than 50 years ago.
In addition, besides New York, only two other states have registered a pike in excess of 40 pounds and one of those is the near century-old 45-pound 12-ounce record from Minnesota, which the Minnesota DNR recognized more than 50 years after the catch, without significant documentation to substantiate it. These state records give a clear indication that pike surpassing 35 pounds are rare in North America, and surpassing Dubuc’s record will be no easy task. But records are made to be broken; so where might a freak pike exist in North America?
If you believe in history repeating itself, some consideration must be given to New York’s Great Sacandaga Lake, as it’s the fishery that has produced the current record. Great Sacandaga is a large, sprawling reservoir. Stretching nearly 30 miles long and with depths approaching 70 feet deep, its large bays riddled with vegetation and submerged wood make this an imposing fishery for newcomers. Situated partially in the Adirondack State Park, much of the northern shoreline remains in its natural state and the resident pike population benefits from good water quality and a diverse forage base.
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For those skeptical of Dubuc’s record catch from 1940 and the lake’s ability to produce such caliber of fish, Dubuc was described as a diehard angler who fished the lake religiously. He had won multiple other national tournaments for largest pike caught and also held the New York state record for largemouth bass. The lake has since produced numerous pike topping 30 pounds through the years, including a 36-pounder and 39-pound 4-ounce giant caught days apart by brothers Americo and Gino Terenzetti, as part of an annual tournament, as reported by Louis Bignami in Fine Fishing Internet magazine. The Terenzetti brothers were said to have fished the lake together for 60 consecutive years and caught their share of pike exceeding 30 pounds. As such, there’s something about Great Sacandaga Lake and giant pike that cannot be ignored.
Great Lakes, Great Pike Not far north from Sacandaga is the St. Lawrence River and Thousand Islands region of Lake Ontario. If this area can breed muskies of nearly 70 pounds, why not a mid-40-pound pike? Under that same logic, the immense Georgian Bay region of Lake Huron could also grow giants. Lake Michigan’s Green Bay has historically produced trophy pike and has the right ingredients to push out record-caliber fish. Better yet, the more remote, less-pressured and deeper waters of Little and Big Bay de Noc could shock the nation with a record fish.
Giant pike swim in the waters that Captain Bret Alexander plies around Green Bay. Several areas on the Great Lakes have historically produced notable pike and have the right ingredients to produce record-caliber fish. Last but not least on the Great Lakes roundup is Lake Superior. There is a mystique that surrounds large, deep lakes and they don’t get much larger or deeper than Superior. Where the depths of Lake Superior relent and shoreline structure enables pike to feed efficiently, gators grow big and fat. The areas around Ashland, Wisconsin, the Apostle Islands, and the eastern shoreline of the Keweenaw Peninsula could potentially produce a record fish.
Canada Gators Beyond the Great Lakes, Canada has some of the most extraordinary pike fishing on the planet. For sheer numbers of pike from 42 to 47 inches, there’s no comparison. The number of Canada’s pike fisheries is only outdone by the vastness of the territory over which pike reign supreme. As noted, pike don’t stop growing at 47 inches north of the border. Instead, there are literally hundreds of Canadian fisheries yielding those that top 48 inches. Some of these fisheries are immense and others just a blip on the map.
A smattering of pike in the 50-inch category are caught on an annual basis at camps throughout northern Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, especially those situated within the magical 52nd to 56th parallels where trophy pike flourish. While a freak pike could come from almost any lake in this region, we more regularly hear of those 50-inch-plus fish coming from larger lakes that have established lodges and a steady stream of anglers throughout the entire season.
Some of the more renowned giant pike fisheries include Wollaston Lake. Here I was fortunate to have caught a 50-inch pike and was later haunted by another one that would dwarf it. Wollaston is so massive that one day we took an hour-long floatplane ride from the lodge to fish the far northern end of the lake. Having already caught multiple low-40-inch fish throughout the day, I was reeling in a solid 38-inch pike when I noticed two much bigger pike lazily following the hooked fish as the blades from my bucktail spinnerbait trailed from its mouth. One fish looked to be 10 to 12 inches bigger than my hooked fish and the other one fish was significantly longer and wider. Both the guide and cameraman witnessed these fish. Pitching a follow-up lure to them was unsuccessful. We let the hooked fish swim around for several more minutes. This time the supertanker followed my fish for about a minute and then disappeared for good.
We fished the area for as long as we could prior to being picked up by the floatplane, and we wished that mega pike good health as we departed. Even with seemingly monster proportions, I couldn’t say with confidence that the mystery pike was a certified 34- to 35-pound fish, and I’d never utter the “f” word (40-pounder) without it being in the boat and possessing an outrageous girth. The water tends to magnify objects and warp our perspective. The certified scale is the great truth teller and rarely gets put to the test.
Some anglers have been spooked by the massive profiles of giant pike that have been witnessed boatside at Wollaston Lake. The huge water regularly gives up big numbers of trophy pike. Lake Athabasca gets more attention from the lake trout crowd than pike anglers, with a 101-pound laker being commercially netted from this deep-water oasis of the Far North. However, both Lakers Unlimited’s camp on the east side of the lake and Blackmur’s Athabasca Fishing Lodges on the west side have stories of pike that could exceed the 40-pound mark. They also have enough photographic proof of 30-pound-class pike to add credence to their pike lore. This is a place where I’ve caught trophy pike that had horrifically giant scars on them. These marks could have been caused during the spawning process by fish of comparable size, but with the past uranium mining operations on the lake, you wonder if this might be the place to catch that mutant 50-pounder?
The Taltson River and Great Slave Lake may be the location with the most stories of megalodon-size pike that appear behind a lure but never get caught. As remarkable as the fishing is for giant pike overseas, when European anglers come to North America for pike, it’s often to Great Slave Lake and the Taltson River. Trip reports from this location can be nearly obscene at times. When conditions are good, a group may have a hundred pike topping 40 inches for the week, including several fish challenging or exceeding the magical 50-inch mark.
Another big-water system that has unlimited pike potential is the Winnipeg River. Although this system is accessible by road, its sheer size means that more massive pike will expire of old age here than will ever be caught. Lake of the Woods and the Rainy River fall within this category, to a lesser extent. Farther to the west, Last Mountain and Tobin lakes are drive-to locations with a shot at producing record pike. With a history of producing record fish, any one of these systems could make history.
To paraphrase the sentiments of In-Fisherman’s Canadian Field Editor Gord Pyzer, however, the chances are extremely remote that a lake in the Far North will produce a pike in excess of 46 pounds. His reasoning is two-fold. First, these fisheries are generally sterile in nature and their growing season extremely short. Most of the lakes are covered in ice for more than half the year. When things heat up enough to melt the ice, big female pike are in the process of spawning. They expend a tremendous amount of energy to do so. This takes a toll on their weight and health. After pike recuperate from the spawn, only a few short months remain of the growing season at this latitude.
While pike can be incredibly long-lived in these environments, they’re not ideal for top-end size potential. The second problem is the goal line being set so high. If mid-30-pound fish are rare and 40-pounders are seemingly non-existent, why should we expect a 46-pounder to suddenly appear?
States North to South Departing Canada but not the North, the Yukon River drainage of Alaska has long been viewed as the last frontier for truly giant pike. Scott Rowekamp has operated Midnight Sun Trophy Pike Adventures on this imposing waterway for nearly two decades and has ridden a wave of giant 50-inch-plus pike ever since. These are muscular river fish conditioned to fighting the current their entire lives and packing on pounds in the process. Rowekamp has numerous accounts of monstrous pike that have eluded the net, but more impressively, he has detailed records of hundreds of big pike caught by customers on an annual basis. He describes their typical “larger” catches as being in the 52-inch x 22-inch category (around 28 pounds). The camp record pike is an astonishing 54-inch x 28-inch behemoth (around 47 pounds). Hope remains for us all.
The Taltson River flows into vast Great Slave Lake, the deepest lake in North America. Few fish have ever seen a lure here, and its cold water grows huge pike and lake trout. When European anglers come to North America for pike, it’s often to Great Slave Lake and the Taltson River. If pike in the Far North are plagued by slower growth rates that keep them from achieving their potential top-end size, the other end of the spectrum can be found in the southern extreme of their range. States such as New Mexico and Oklahoma surprisingly have state-record pike of 36 pounds. This puts them roughly on par with what most consider powerhouse pike states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North and South Dakota. However, the farther south you go in the pike’s range, you encounter the conundrum of “is it better to burn out than fade away.” Pike have much faster growth rates in warmer environments; they have longer feeding seasons each year but fail to live as long as their northern counterparts. As an added disadvantage, southern pike are occasionally stocked as a means to control rough-fish populations, and as a non-native species, they’re not regulated for trophy status. This means they regularly get harvested prior to reaching their growth potential.
If that in-between ground exists in the United States for long-lived and fast-growing pike to reach into the 40-pound class, it’s likely from a large western reservoir in Idaho or Montana, or perhaps Colorado. The Idaho state record of 40 pounds 2 ounces was caught in 2010, making it the first verified 40-pounder caught in the United States since Dubuc’s record fish. Jeff Smith of Fins & Feathers Guide Service calls that fish a freak as it was the result of illegal pike stocking in Lower Twin Lake, a small natural lake managed for trout and kokanee salmon. Although surprised at the location of the catch, Smith wasn’t shocked by the size of the fish. The prior Idaho state record, caught just three years earlier, weighed 39 pounds 13 ounces and was caught from the sizable Coeur d’Alene impoundment where Smith guides.
For pike that surpass the 50-inch mark, perhaps no other system gives up more fish of that caliber than the Yukon River drainage in Alaska. Smith has no doubt that fish topping 40 pounds could currently exist in both Coeur d’Alene and Lake Pend Oreille. He says that they generally see a handful of 30- to 35-pound pike each year, with an occasional 37- to 38-pounder surfacing. Several years ago, he and others stalked a fish on multiple occasions that may have topped Dubuc’s record. An incredibly massive fish that no one ever hooked and which Smith figures died of old age in subsequent years. Since pike aren’t offered any state protections in the form of size or bag limits in Idaho and there’s no closed season, the odds remain stacked against breaking the record, but there’s hope.
Smith credits the size and depth of the Coeur d’Alene, along with its good water quality and prey diversity, with growing pike to record proportions. In addition, these lakes don’t freeze, allowing for longer growing seasons and more active pike throughout the entire year. As proof of the quick growth rates of pike in these fisheries, the Idaho DNR has recorded pike reaching 36 inches in just three years.
On Fort Peck Reservoir in Montana, Clint Thomas operates Hell Creek Marina and echoes many of the same sentiments regarding western reservoirs growing the biggest pike in North America. Living his entire life on Fort Peck, he’s witnessed his share of mid-30-pound pike caught from his home waters. He credits the vastness of the reservoir, its forage base, as well as the long-established catch-and-release philosophy of trophy fish caught from the lake, for producing such fish. “Most anglers consider pike in the 6- to 10-pound range and walleyes in the 14- to 22-inch range as the best eaters,” he says. “We release all the bigger fish.” As a salvage diver, he’s confident that he’s seen multiple pike nearing 50 pounds—fish that remain out there for anglers to catch.
Several reservoirs in western states such as Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado are notable for catches of outsized pike. Will Dykstra, guide with Tightline Outdoors, connects clients with trophy pike on Colorado reservoirs. We may never see a pike exceeding 46 pounds 2 ounces caught on hook and line in North America. But the more stories we hear about monster pike creeping around the four corners of the continent and the occasional fish being certified in that elusive 40-pound category, we gain a little more hope that maybe, just maybe, one day . . .
In-Fisherman Field Editor Steve Ryan writes for all In-Fisherman publications. An outstanding multispecies angler, he’s traveled near and far in search of giant esocids, in addition to pursuing many other trophy fishes at home and abroad.
