grass pike?

[reddogadventures]

Last summer, I was fishing with a friend in W. Wisconsin and he caught a small northern. He wanted to keep it because he said it was a "grass pike, not a northern and it wouldn't get much bigger anyway." I thought he was joking but he wasn't. I'd never heard of a grass pike. Now I've had another friend tell me there is such a species but I'm not convinced.

Can anyone out there tell me if they are full of talk or is there really such a fish?

[Swamprat72]

I think your buddy was talking about a pickerel, at least that's what I grew up knowing them as. They look almost the same as a northern but have a black line under their eyes and no they don't grow as big as the northerns.

[Maashkinoozhe]

Here's a link(I'm assuming it's the same as the grass pickeral):

http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/speciesSummary.php?ID=2710&genusname=Esox&speciesname=americanus+vermiculatus

Dave