Fish Wildlife and Parks fishery biologist Adam Strainer holds a 44.5-inch, 33.8-pounder Northern Pike that had a 23.5-inch girth that the crew caught while trapping walleye for tagging on Canyon ...

Young has landed pike up to 38 inches on fly fishing gear, releasing all of the fish he catches. “There’s plenty of lakes around (Bemidji) that have bigger pike,” he said.

Northern pike themselves seem to spring out of storybooks: ghastly looking creatures, bony and serpentine, clad in scaly, slimy, mottled-green skin, their large maws rimmed with needle-like teeth.