What is winterkill, and why does it matter for pike lakes?
Winterkill is oxygen starvation under long ice cover: snow-buried ice blocks sunlight, plants stop photosynthesizing and start decomposing, and dissolved oxygen drains lake-wide until fish suffocate. Shallow, fertile, weedy lakes — which is to say, classic pike water — are exactly the lakes most at risk, and a hard winterkill can wipe out or reset a pike population for years. Pike are somewhat more tolerant of low oxygen than walleye or trout, so they are often the last predator standing in a marginal lake; a lake known for periodic partial winterkills can even grow big pike fast, because competition gets culled.
The full story
This answer is one piece of a longer lesson — setups, diagrams and the reasoning behind it.
More questions about Breathing & oxygen
Same topic, other species
- Where do crappie go in late winter under the ice? — Crappie
- How does the thermocline affect where largemouth hold in summer? — Largemouth Bass
- What is the late-summer oxygen squeeze? — Muskellunge (Muskie)
- What is winter-kill, and why does it shape so many perch lakes? — Yellow Perch
- Does a summer smallmouth have to move deep? — Smallmouth Bass
- What is a "summer squeeze" or summer kill for trout? — Trout (Rainbow · Brook · Lake)
- Why are walleye sometimes suspended out over the open basin? — Walleye