An Idaho angler who spends most of his free time fishing for northern pike has established a new state record with the catch of what the state described as “a true monster of a fish.”
“Pike is what I go after all the time. I spend almost everyday fishing for pike,” said Thomas Francis, who set the record March 21 at Hayden Lake.
His catch weighed 40.76 pounds. It measured 49 inches with a 26.5-inch girth. In a news release, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game described the pike as “a true monster of a fish.”
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The catch breaks the previous record of 40.13 pounds, set at Lower Twin Lake in 2010.
Francis said that on March 21 he embarked with his usual mindset: to catch a big pike. The record fish struck after a cast to the edge of some ice that remained on the lake.
“When my lure hit the water, I let it sink all the way to the bottom,” Francis recalled. “As soon as my lure hit the bottom, I felt her hit. I fish with 80-pound-test line, and she almost immediately started peeling drag, a lot of it.”
The pike continued to strip line while swimming powerfully across the lake bottom. “I knew that wasn’t normal, and I could tell it was something special,” Francis said.
Suddenly, the pike charged upward and launched from the water, revealing its massive size. Francis knew it might be a record after netting the fish, so he sped toward the dock in order to locate a certified scale.
For comparison, the world record for northern pike is 55 pounds, 1 ounce. That fish was caught at Germany’s Lake of Grefeern in 1986.
