True or not Tr ue???

[hardwaterfishing]

I have a couple questions, is it true that pike have eggs in them all year long? some people say they do and some say they don’t. And I also hear from people that they lose their teeth in the winter. I believe this one because there seems to be a 2 week period where I cannot get them to bite. Just wondering. Thanks....

[Snake River King]

I am not sure about eggs? but I know they loose there teath I know once in the spring and also late fall, early winter they do too.

[knoppers]

I would have to say not true to both.

if a fish does not spawn, they may absorb the row.

northerns, especially the bigger ones, will seek cooler water in the dog days of summer, they just relocate. also in that time of year, there are plenty of baitfish, and young fish available to forage on. they just become a little tougher to find and catch. they do not loose there teeth.

[Mark Christianson]

According to DNR fish biologist Don Pereira, northerns may occasionally lose teeth in an unfortunate run-in with particularly tough prey or bait, but there's no evidence they do so regularly.

[TurnUpTheFishing]

Pike do lose their teeth but not at set times of the year. In the old days the myth was that pike would lose their teeth in the summer and this made them hard to catch. In reality the pike just moved out to deeper cool water locations (were most were not fishing) and this and most other fish habits were not known and some how the teeth rumor began.

As far as eggs, I think that fish begin the regeneration of a new batch of eggs not long after they are laid in the spring. Pike spawn early after ice out so they should be plump with eggs right now.

[Minnetonka]

All animals are born with a set number of eggs (or gametes if you want to get technical) eggs will develop during ovulation, but not all at once. For example; human females ovulate or release one mature egg a month. Fish and other animals will develop a whole bunch more eggs at once. As soon as fish spawn more eggs will begin to slowly develop and will become larger and more pronounced as the spawn approaches. Northerns are like sharks, they are constantly growing and losing teeth all year long. Someone else already mentioned the old myth about the period in the summer. They just go deeper to the cooler water, they do not lose all of their teeth.

[JohnMickish]

Fish do not lose their teeth. This is an old wives tale that was started loooong ago. It's just some peoples excuses for when the bite is hard, like now when fish are very lethargic and don't need to eat and in July when there is an abundance of young of the year fish swimming around looking more natural than what we use.

[I_Love_Nuge]

I caught a 14" northern today and it didnt have any teeth on the bottom and the top had a few. Because the thing swallowed the hook, I lipped the thing to get its mouth open. Didnt rip my thumb up at all.

[Down Deep]

I'm not a fish biologist so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but I've caught 100's of northerns some in every month of the year and have never caught one that didn't have teeth.

[Mark Christianson]

I agree. I can't even begin to imagine how many pike I have caught over the years, and never once have I gotten one that didnt have teeth. Or any amount of teeth missing that made me wonder what was going on.

[Minnetonka]

"I'm not a fish biologist so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about"

I do have a degree as a fisheries biologist, and I believe that I know what I am talking about. Northerns and other fish will have dozens on teeth in various stages of development. Small teeth move forward to take the place of damaged or missing teeth. A fish may lose only a couple of teeth at a time, not a majority. Occasionally, for a variety of reasons, fish can get swollen mouth tissue that makes it appear that teeth are minimized. They are still there and will reappear as the tissue goes back to normal.

[SwimRunFly]

I beleive the tooth issue has been answered. Female Northers will show a lot of spawn inside of them this time of year because they are the first fish to spawn. If the lake you are fishing has a incoming or out going stream northers will use them to spawn before the ice is even out of the lake.