A lake "full of pike" — good news or bad?
For trophy hunters, usually bad. Pike density and pike size run inversely: a lake boiling with 45–60 cm (18–24 in) fish is a lake where too many mouths split the prey base and few individuals ever reach the growth escape velocity of switching to large prey. The best big-pike waters typically hold modest numbers of pike over deep, cold, oily prey — ciscoes, whitefish, suckers — with enough space and cannibalism to keep the juniors thinned. So flip the question at the dock: do not ask how many pike the lake has; ask what the pike there have to eat, and how big the lake lets them get before something eats them.
The full story
This answer is one piece of a longer lesson — setups, diagrams and the reasoning behind it.
More questions about Territory & aggression
Same topic, other species
- What kind of lake grows the best crappie — fertile, infertile or in between? — Crappie
- Why can the same dock produce repeatedly? — Largemouth Bass
- Do muskie live in fast rivers and small lakes? — Muskellunge (Muskie)
- Do yellow perch live in current, or in infertile rock lakes? — Yellow Perch
- Outside the spawn, do smallmouth defend territory on structure? — Smallmouth Bass
- Can a moderately fertile (mesotrophic) lake hold trout? — Trout (Rainbow · Brook · Lake)
- Can walleye live in a small pond or a small shallow lake? — Walleye