What do pike actually eat most?
Whatever soft-finned, tube-shaped fish is most available — and in most of their range that means perch first. Yellow perch are the staple across the pike's North American range; ciscoes, whitefish, and suckers dominate where they exist because their oily, soft-rayed bodies are the highest-calorie, easiest-swallowing package in the lake; shiners, smelt, and juvenile gamefish fill the gaps, and smaller pike are always on the menu. Spiny, deep-bodied prey like sunfish get eaten but rank low — the pike's sideways grab-and-turn handles a cylinder far better than a dinner plate. Match the local staple in size and shape before you worry about anything else.
The full story
This answer is one piece of a longer lesson — setups, diagrams and the reasoning behind it.
More questions about Diet
- How big a prey can a pike really swallow?
- Do pike really eat ducklings and muskrats?
- Dead or alive — does a pike care?
- How does the pike menu shift through the year?
- What is the gorge-and-fast cycle, and how do I fish around it?
- Do pike ever eat insects, leeches and other invertebrates?
- Do pike eat shad and alewives?
Same topic, other species
- Do crappie ever stop eating zooplankton? — Crappie
- What do largemouth actually eat? — Largemouth Bass
- What do muskie actually eat? — Muskellunge (Muskie)
- What do yellow perch actually eat? — Yellow Perch
- How important are crayfish to smallmouth, really? — Smallmouth Bass
- How does a trout's diet change as it grows? — Trout (Rainbow · Brook · Lake)
- What do walleye mainly eat? — Walleye