Timothy Hicks and his brother Steve are die-hard northern pike fishermen. On June 13 they were having a banner morning catching oversize pike that had just spawned on sprawling Lake Pend Oreille in northwest Idaho.
“They spawn late on Pend Oreille because it’s so deep and cold,” Hicks tells Outdoor Life. “The fish had moved out from bays and were holding along deep weed edges in 15 feet of water.”
The brothers worked the deep weed edges with large spoons, making long casts and hopping them off bottom. By mid-morning, they’d caught over a dozen good pike up to 35 inches, when Hicks made a long cast parallel to the deep weed edge.
“I’d let my 5/8-ounce chartreuse-green spoon sink to the bottom,” says the 44-year-old owner of 3V Plumbing in his hometown of Post Falls. “I jumped it off the bottom, letting it flutter back down, and felt a slight ‘tick’ of a strike. I set the hook and I knew it was a good one.”
Hicks believed the fish was at least 40 inches. He battled the pike using a 7.5-foot Loomis bait-casting rod holding a Shimano Curado reel spooled with 15-pound test Maxima monofilament line. An 80-pound test fluorocarbon leader prevented the pike from cutting off.
“The fish made several big runs around my boat, and then a strong power run at the end pulling drag off my reel,” he says. “My brother grabbed our net, and when I got it close we put the fish in our boat.”
They photographed and measured the pike, then released it.
Hicks had not thought about his pike being a state record for catch-and-release until he showed friend Brock Morrow a photo of his fish.
“He thought it might be a state record, so we looked it up on the Idaho website, and sure enough it was,” Hicks says.
Hicks’s fish topped the previous Idaho catch-and-release pike by ¾ inch, caught by Scott Blahnik in 2020 from Coeur d’Alene Lake. Idaho now has officially certified Hicks’s pike as the new state catch-and-release record of 49.75 inches.
His pike was not weighed, but Hicks says it was about 35 pounds and surely would have weighed more if it had not just spawned out.
“I’ve been looking for this fish for over 30 years – ever since my dad Dennis caught the Idaho record 49-inch pike weighing 38 pounds, 9 ounces in 1992,” he says. “His pike may have been heavier, but mine is longer.
“I’m going to have a replica mount made of my fish and hang it on the wall right next to my dad’s fish that’s in my living room.”
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His dad’s big pike was caught from Coeur d’Alene Lake. But Hicks says Lake Pend Oreille is now a hot spot for huge northerns.
“They’re considered an invasive species that somehow got into Lake Pend Oreille, and the state wants them gone so they don’t impact other fish species,” Hicks says. “But the lake is full of pike, and the habitat for them in Pend Oreille is perfect – cold, clear, deep water, good weed growth and plenty of food. I love fishing for them, just like my dad and brother.”