How To CATCH, CLEAN, and COOK Northern Pike. (Ice Out Ontario Pike)

What's up guys? um, we're back on the ship. It's just an exciting time of year. The lakes are starting to open. There is still a lot of ice on Lake of the Woods. It'll probably be a week or two until it completely clears up, but the smaller lakes are open, parts of Lake of the Woods are open and we're back on the water and today I want to do something a little different. Pike on ice is an activity that I love to do. one of those fish that are ready to come out as soon as the ice clears, but I don't fish or

cook

a

cook

for

pike

because I think a lot of people have it in their minds that

pike

are no good. to eat like no, I only eat pike perch I don't like eating pike it's like well I'm willing to bet if you're blindfolded you probably won't notice the difference, no I don't think I can tell the difference, maybe a slight change in consistency , but if

northern

pike are caught in nice cold water and prepared properly, they make amazing table food and sometimes it can be a lot easier to

catch

walleye, so here we are today. casting a swimbait we might

catch

some walleyes we have a heavy flower leader here this is a three three and a half inch swimbait that I made myself with my casts a 5 8 ounce jig we are using a 8 foot swim bait. it's a g loomis imx pro i don't even know what this reel is this is a revo with 40lb braid that's all for gear talk we're using heavier fluoro so there's a chance the pike will bite us but i want the chance to catch some walleye today since it's the last day of walleye season, but the goal is to catch a diner-sized pike and I'm going to show you guys how to

clean

them because, uh, in In some of the lodges The ones I've worked on, what we mainly ate was pike and not walleye, and people love them, so I want to share with you a little bit about how to catch them, but more importantly, how to

clean

them and some ways to do it.

I like to cook them, so we're pretty shallow here, we're in like five feet of water, six feet of water, so I'm swimming halfway up the water column, I could hit it off the bottom, but I was getting quite a bit. A little weed when I came off the bottom, but right now we're just looking. This is a big mud flat at the mouth of a spawning bay and I think the fish are going to be trafficking. Oh, here we go first. takes the bait, oh, and it's a beautiful

northern

pike and it's gone well, the pike is in the bays, let it be known, oh, right in the middle feeling another little one, hey, I don't even even get it close to the camera for you. but it's two fish and two casts this is my search bait this is what I'm starting with and this is a beautiful and delicious three inch j siemens j special jig oh oh that's a little better we could switch to full pike here In short, a little bigger, don't put too much weight on it because as I mentioned I don't have a leader in this like the 30 pound fluoro, but that's our first real pike, sorry guys, my camera died there, but we got the first one. northern pike this is the perfect size to eat probably 22 inches we're bringing this guy back with us 27 and a quarter okay guys just so you know you can't keep the pike in the area over 75 centimeters, which is about 29 and a half. inches, that fish was like 27, it was a perfect eater, so flammable pike, more than a lot of other species, you're often doing fan casting that just throws out these big areas, you don't know, when they're in weed beds. , they definitely can relate to very specific edges or points, but sometimes early in the year it's warm water, it's these muddy bays and they can be anywhere within this huge flat, so you're just covering water, you're essentially trying to pick it up.

Break it apart and you know, cut it into pieces and try to hit as many angles as possible and different pieces so you know I'm casting from the nose here, I'm casting to the right towards the shore, there can definitely be pockets that hold more fish, but in general, you're just trying to cover that water, oh, I just got crushed. I'll slow down a little, so often the pike still follows me, so I took my foot off the pedal. I'm going to give it a lot of breaks and oh, I saw it there, I caught it, maybe that's why I missed it the first time.

Wow, why are we catching so many small pike? My friend John Hoyer says pike or minus one point, so right now I have minus a few, let's go to another one, what is this? hatchery, well we've hit a lot of small ones, we have one that eats perfectly, so I know the focus of this is to catch clean pike because I think that's something everyone should learn to do, but we only have one big one that we just had. I have a big pike following, so I think I'm going to try something bigger, something with a little more, a little more, well guys you've probably heard me talk about the Swedish lure company Headbanger, who I've been working with a lot over time.

The last two years they helped film some of their promotional stuff and got some new bait. Which one do we want? We want fire tiger. See, this is called fire tail. Really great bait. I think it's the perfect size for what we're doing here. so you've got this cool little harness here, this is going to screw into the nose, so we're going to attach these hooks back in here, there you go, I'm using the larger size harness on the smaller size bait, let's see how it goes go. in the unreal unreal water I'll overlay some underwater footage of this, okay, we've caught lunch, now we're looking to upgrade, we're using the firetail and we can catch the first pike in North America if we do.

I'm lucky it's new. I think it's coming out at first. I probably could have gone with a slightly heavier rod for this, but I think it will work pretty well. Oh, oh, that's better, that's better, oh, he's throwing at me. still swimming towards me oh baby oh baby that's more like yeah this is my first pike in the fire tail that's good I'm going to catch him come on baby that's what we're talking about right there in the fire story of the fire tiger and we have a beautiful fat pike, I have my pliers here, they will be easy to pop, okay, that fish is coming back, look how fat that fish is, it is so good, so since you saw me put the harness together earlier these hooks can actually come off all the rig and that's what makes it pretty good and that was my first pike on fire tail, there we go, look at how that rig just comes off and look at that bulge in its stomach that's not healthy, there's no That's right, look how square it is, wow, I think what a lot of people don't realize is that a lot of times when the pike are in shallow bays, they're actually metabolizing after eating deeper, which is why sometimes you see that you know the tail sticks out.

From their mouths it looks like a bourbon cola or a cisco cola. They don't find that bait on the back of oh oh, nice, pretty fish. They don't find that bait in the back of the bay. They are digging deeper to feed. Wow, these fish are fat here, not that long, but the average size has definitely increased since I switched from this little swimbait, another beautiful pike that fell victim to the new fire tale. How cool, I love it, oh what do we have? swimming towards me oh oh that's bigger than I thought that's a nice pike bring it over here wow everyone's fat another nice catfish from northwestern Ontario killed the pike snake she's gone I'd rather let her go than rip off her gills trying to Wait guys , I have to be honest with you.

I had some technical difficulties today. The mic went off and then I realized the mic was in my jacket during the other part, so I apologize if there were any issues if you're listening. very loud music and not much talking, it means the audio is rubbish, there is also a little water on the lens, but we have caught some pike and I apologize for the technical difficulties, I will do better, but we have about half an hour left, maybe. catch a couple more and then we go to the kitchen, Sam's kitchen, the bites have been so good on this big bait on the bottom tail, oh they're still biting, man I love how the hooks come off this bait which is like a European thing a lot of their soft plastics have that kind of system this pike is nasty look at this adipose fin that's nasty this pike has had a hard life we'll get him back quickly okay baby be free oh oh that feels good, I was about to call up the last cast, oh come on honey, be you, not the one alright, although we've had a fantastic afternoon of piken, i'll give firetail my seal of approval, great day, pikes of good size, thank you. to you for following the audio issues and next time we will see you in the kitchen welcome back to the store here is our beautiful 27 inch pike this is the perfect size for eating yes I think a lot of people are intimidated for the pike, there is actually only one.

An extra step to skinning them is to take out the bones and, but we're going to start by cutting them in half and we're just going to slap them together. I guess that's the term I've heard before. I'll try to make my It's best to keep this accessible so you can see what's going on. I cut a lot of pikes while guiding north, but I don't claim to be any kind of expert, they have an extra step. I'm going to turn them around. here we'll start this way now we're going to cut behind the gill plate down until we get to that column now we're going to run along the column to the tail shout out to my grandfather abe taves for teaching me how to cut pike how to cut pike perch never I'll be as good as him but I'll keep trying, as you can see you get a lot of meat from a 27 inch pike, look at that, that's only half of it.

It's so beautiful, okay, let's turn it over here, look, look what it's been eating, there's a little fish that looks like the tail of a cisco, maybe or something, right now we're cutting the other side and we don't HE. I think there will be a side when you cut the fish that you will be better at. What I try to do now is not cut the loin because if you cut the loin it's hard to finish the fish, okay, there's the other half. as you can see, I made it, I made it medium, I'd give it a six, seven out of ten, maybe you can see there's a little bit more meat, maybe on the back I could have kept it, but overall pretty good, so I'm going to do a couple of things.

I want to trim this belly meat, I can trim, I can trim around that fin, I mean, you can eat some of that belly meat if you want, but let's start by taking out the ribs, which is the edge of the ribs right there, that's the piece we're taking out, so we're trying to get the knife down and then take it out from underneath. You might cause if you cut down you're going to lose all that meat under the ribs, so let's try and less is more when you do this, so I'm trying to get underneath and then I'm just trying to get that knife through. throughout this.

I know, guys, there are a lot of people who cut fish much better than me. I know pike can be intimidating and the best way to do it is to start doing it, so now I'm curving my knife up and trying to get under the ribs, but you can see right there that I'm getting under, that's it. where the ribs end, okay, the ribs are already out, as you can see, there are still fins and some belly meat, so I'm going to cut that off, okay, we're very close to finishing, guys, this is the step that people have to learn.

This is where the difference between pike and zander is, so I'm going to hold it close to the camera. Here I see those little white dots that are part of the Y bone and that is the hardest part to remove. the bones and they go down and then they catch underneath, so I'm going to cut on this side of the bone and I'm going to cut until I hit it, then I'm going to cut against them and then I'm going to cut on this side of the bone and I'm going to cut and then I will take out the bottom like the ribs.

I'm starting at the top and I'm getting as close as I can to the bone and I'm just running it down and you can hear it, listen to this, you hear that's the knife hitting the edge of the bone and, so I'm just going to keep running down the bones and until it's pretty close to the tail section right there and and this is where you're going to lose me, this is going to get difficult, now I'm going to turn the knife and I'm going to run it flat along the length, so now I made a little opening, you can Almost you can bend it open and you can see those Y bones.

I can run my finger over them, so those are the ones you're taking out, so all this meat is going to be saved up here, so now the next one step is. I'm going to the bottom edge of the Y bone, there I'm running down and now I'm going to draw under it and I'm going to connect to that other cut right there, so now I'm going to Draw under it and I'm turning off the knife. Look, I'm turning my wrist. I'm just helping him out and trying to save as much meat as possible, so it's okay if you cut completely, right now at this point.

You can see that flap that I have right there, which is the Y bone, that's the part that scares people from eating pike and it's really not that scary,so the other thing you can do right now if you did a really good job cutting yourself. You may be able to cut it out or you can just cut it from the top where those two cuts connected and now it will basically just come out. Look, I might have to help him at the end, there's a little boom, so there you go. As you can see, so you can see there once it comes into focus I made something like this. a little flap on the top to get those bones out, now it has no bones in the entire tail section, you might find a couple depending how far you go, so you'll want to play it safe and go pretty close to the tail, but there you have a boneless pike fillet, we're going to peel it and we're going to cut it into cubes because we're going to make some chili pike bites sweet.

One thing about pike meat is that it's definitely a firmer meat, so it's better suited for a stir-fry, if you're making these little bites, that kind of thing holds together a little better. I like to grab that skin and just hold the knife flat and just move the skin back and forth, there you go. I'm really happy with the result, as you can see, I left a little bit of meat in there, but overall pretty good, again, always take that second to feel, feel the meat. Be, make sure you don't leave any bones. Feel the edge of the ribs right here near the anal fin.

There's some tougher meat, so let's cut it up and that's a nice piece of meat. I don't think you ever need to keep a pike on you, well you can't even keep a pike on you. I think it's 29.5 inches in Ontario, but actually a 25 to 27 inch pike is pretty perfect, okay, let's cut this other one. one and we will head to the kitchen, not perfect but boneless, so here we go, a pike has given us a good amount of meat, we will wash it, cut it into cubes and see you in the kitchen. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Sam's kitchen.

We are cooking. Cooking the pike I caught. As you can see, we have a good amount of meat. We will cut it into cubes. We will fry it. We will add a little sweet chili sauce to them. and then are you adding a saute component to this or a little bit, yeah? Sam is adding some vegetables, some vegetables, um originally, this is just going to be pike with sweet chili, um, but Sam is kicking it up a little bit, but anyway, the first thing we do is What we're going to do is cut the pike into cubes and we'll throw half and catch and cook spicy for me and half and catch and cook original for Sam, that's the size I'm going to go for right there, check it out guys. like little perfect sized cubes, you know, we're just going to do this in one layer, we're not going to double coat it today so it's not always so spicy, if you want it spicier, you can double coat it, but we.

We're going to dip these little pieces and roll them in the spice and then set them aside right now. We are doing something original. You took much more time and care with your pieces. How come I don't understand that? boom spicy not spicy okay we're making the first original boom oh yeah it cooks so fast we just completely fog up the lens and by we I mean I love mixing different sauces because I just like small pieces. They're like boneless wings, look at that, oh, that's good, that's okay, let's get the next batch on quickly, that's the bus, the spice is ready, the good thing about fishing and cooking, I know this sounds like an argument from sale, but it is not.

They don't completely fall apart in the oil, some things that are like bigger chunks just completely disintegrate, which is just part of it, but more of a flour base that catches and cooks keeps the oil fresh a little longer , okay, let's go in. We're starting with the original, we're going to throw the fish in the pan, heat it up a little bit. Typically you know you'd probably throw it in the same pan you cook the fish in if you're making a shoreline brunch type meal. so I'm going to wait until the pan is a little hotter, let's add some sweet Thai chili sauce, that's what will make your sweet Thai chili pike bites too spicy, I should have done this, no no.

I'm making the turn, you know what I just decided? I just decided this is my fish. You record, I want to cook. I'm sorry. You cook your own fish. Are you OK. You're not doing it. No, no style points for you. No, I don't want style points. I want a light dose of sweet chili. I want mine just covered in sauce. I believe it and I understand it. No, I don't understand it, but I believe it. Look at it now, it's getting hot now. I'm almost done here, okay, okay, let's add a little more sweet chili sauce, we're not going to throw all this fish on that, just, yeah, I'm not going to eat all of this, we'll eat maybe half of it now, it's everything, oh, this is it.

Not throwing anything is supposed to be something epic, like a fish flipping in the air, but it's not happening. I blame the sweet chili sauce. We just have to do the manual stirring. I think we'll figure this out. on my plate, do you want this, this is, you're doing all these other things, come on, come on, let's get the real chef to talk about this, okay, let's look at the presentation, so what was I going to do here? I put some broccoli, yellow pepper and pineapple on it like that, then we take our 4k crispy noodles and then I have some carrots with a tiny dash of lemon juice, a nice chunk to hold up to the sauce, a little bit of tomato sauce, I cook like, oh, that looks good. sam wow actually let's take a photo of this this is like this good job thank you and then the only difference for Jay's fish was there will be rice underneath and the spicy fish okay the taste test is that . well I put mine in the rice, Sam in the crispy noodles, this is good, I'll take credit for the pike, Sam can take credit for everything else, let's say thank you and try some delicious frozen pike, thanks everyone for following us, don Don't be intimidated by pike, they are not that difficult to clean and taste so good that many people overlook them.

Thank you all for watching, don't forget to wear your life jacket and where are we now? know how to pick up your trash pick up your trash see you guys