Pike teeth

[Rangerclay]

I never realized there was a debate over pike teething till I joined this forum.  I was reading another thread and someone mentioned it was a myth.  I'm sure if there is a myth but every pike we caught over the weekend had red gums and was almost toothless.  What is your spin

Ranger

[fishinmastah]

i dont know what kinda of pike u were catching but i caught 6 this weekend and my fingers r totally sliced up from trying to hold their mouths open they have rows of sharp small teeth

[billybono]

pike loose teeth and replace there teeth year round. they just break off grabbing food etc, and there are new teeth in the gums ready to push out and replace the missing ones.but in the winter before the spawn, as it was stated in a thread somewhere else around here, they don't expend the energy to replace these teeth until after the spawn. but pike keep feeding. on an evolutionary aspect, think of it being like an expectant human mother being genetically set up to make feeding during a pregnancy difficult. it just doesn't make sense. pike just become way less aggressive during the mid winter due to lower dissolved oxygen levels in most bodies of water, and it picks up again as D.O. levels increase near last ice. the same myth is used during the middle of the summer to explain why the pike fishing slows down, when in reality its pretty much the same scenario. so in my opinion, this is the best time of the year to employ dead bait presentations



       billybono

[billybono]

oh and i always catch my biggest pike through the ice at this time of year. the one in my avitar was caught almost a year ago during this period



                                      billybono

[iceintheveins]

I never realized there was a debate over pike teething till I joined this forum.  I was reading another thread and someone mentioned it was a myth.  I'm sure if there is a myth but every pike we caught over the weekend had red gums and was almost toothless.  What is your spin

Ranger

I've never noticed a difference in pike teeth in any times of the year.

[Lobes]

Pike I caught this past weekend had the legendary swollen gums. At first glance it appeared they didn't have all their teeth but ater a closer look, they were all there but not poking through the gums very well.

 

[snot rocket]

It is clear that these fish are not flossing...swollen red gums? need a trip to the dentist 

[billybono]

Pike I caught this past weekend had the legendary swollen gums. At first glance it appeared they didn't have all their teeth but ater a closer look, they were all there but not poking through the gums very well.

 

steel leader?  rubbing on the gums and teeth ? 


    billybono

[Muskie Matt]

Along the same lines as Billybono, I've never believed in this myth.  I catch some of my biggest pike during the DEAD of winter with DEAD bait.  They do loose their teeth, but this happens throughout the year.

[grumpymoe]

I read these posts and start afew of my own, and find it difficult that some anglers have a problem reading a post about pike losing their teeth....and possible slow downs during specific weeks of the hardwater season....some will say.....I dont believe it....others say....they lose their teeth year round.....I agree....but during cold hardwater extremes, they are not regenerating teeth as fast until they hit prime temps...how in the world can you say this is a MYTH?....

Was going through this debate a couple years ago when I was getting my degree. We had two fisheries biologist on the staff and the question came up in class to the older of the two, Frank Smith. He agreed that there is something to them losing teeth and asked if I'd bring up an example. Brought him 3 different pike,2 females and 1 male over the course of that winter, all from different bodies of water. He called the condition "tooth morphology" and said to me after the third pike "you and that tooth morphology, ain't gonna let it go are ya?" What he explained to me and the class is that they lose the teeth for a variety of reasons,but mostly during feeding,  and that the replacement teeth that usually replace them in the warmer season lay in the fleshy part of the jaw almost like cartilage, kinda "floating" not part of the jaw itself. He had an x-ray photo to back it up,really cool old guy, anyway, he further explained that like most fish the pike's metabolism slows in the winter to the point of not putting the physical energy into the replacement of the teeth until the water temps go up and the ice is out and usually not until after they spawn.Same reason why they lose them so easily. It takes them all they have energy wise to survive in the winter, less feeding, yes less, and the energy conservation helps maintain the critical body functions. Since the teeth are there anyway, once the feeding picks up and their metabolisms rise and they get past the spawn which uses a lot of their already low energy they start replacing their lost teeth and its an involuntary process that does it. Hope this helps. If you were to meet him on the water you wouldn't think he was as knowledgable as he is and certainly wouldn't think he was a biologist by his look, just an old fisherman who likes Wild Turkey on the boat and a wad a chew for the day. Info and intelligence comes in all shapes and sizes, but it is hard to weed out legitimate from the far fetched when it comes to scientific theory

....the razor sharp inner jaw and upper mouth never change....its the OUTSIDE JAWS that take the brunt of feeding.....Grump

[billybono]

I read these posts and start afew of my own, and find it difficult that some anglers have a problem reading a post about pike losing their teeth....and possible slow downs during specific weeks of the hardwater season....some will say.....I dont believe it....others say....they lose their teeth year round.....I agree....but during cold hardwater extremes, they are not regenerating teeth as fast until they hit prime temps...how in the world can you say this is a MYTH?........the razor sharp inner jaw and upper mouth never change....its the OUTSIDE JAWS that take the brunt of feeding.....Grump

and all that is almost exactly what i said. the MYTH here is that ALL pike ,ritualisticaly almost, shed there teeth like a snake shedding its skin in the middle of winter, and dont feed. which is not true. it is a myth. i have also heard it reffered to as pike teething


               billybono

[grumpymoe]

exactly my point...

some anglers have a problem reading a post

   

possible slow downs during specific weeks of the hardwater season

.....No mention about not feeding at all.....Grump

[billybono]

no i read it    but what does this have to do with pike not feeding BECAUSE of "teething"?(which of course id the myth that this thread was started because)

 metabolism slows in the winter to the point of not putting the physical energy into the replacement of the teeth until the water temps go up and the ice is out and usually not until after they spawn.Same reason why they lose them so easily. It takes them all they have energy wise to survive in the winter, less feeding, yes less, and the energy conservation helps maintain the critical body functions

or

pike loose teeth and replace there teeth year round. they just break off grabbing food etc, and there are new teeth in the gums ready to push out and replace the missing ones.but in the winter before the spawn, as it was stated in a thread somewhere else around here, they don't expend the energy to replace these teeth until after the spawn.

but whatever, use whatever excuse ya want for not icing em, i have 4 to clean from today 

                                                             billybono

[esox slayer]

Well...all I can say is this..call it swollen gums..losing teeth, teething, not replacing teeth...whatever, all I know for sure is that out of the 21 pike I've pulled from the ice in the past 3 weeks, only one of them has has near a full set of choppers, the remainder have had maybe one or two, so the odds are that on a percentage basis, in this PARTICULAR body of water, the majority of pike caught on my lines have been toothless or near toothless for whatever reason anybody cares to throw out there.

I can also throw into the mix that in my experience as a hardwater fisherman, in all my years fishing pike, that it seems every year that the last week of January/first week of February is when this "whatever" seems to start..regardless of whether we have ice the first weekend in December or not until the middle of January...it always happens the same time of year, in my experience. 

I, as well as BB and a couple others , catch my biggest pike "normally" during this time of year, but not always...I've caught big ones at first ice and I've caught them on the last day of the season, just move up toward shallower water and get 'em going up to the marshes....  but this time of year, the bite is off, flags are fewer(speaking from my experience only) and I have to change tactics to trigger bites..is it because their gums are sore or they've got no teeth??  I know if I had a sore jaw I wouldn't go chewing on hard candy, I'd go for something softer or forego chowing until the jaw quit hurting.

Myth??  Fact???  Who knows..all I know is what I've learned from my years out here....when I open a pikes mouth with the spreaders and see one lone tooth on the outer jaws and swollen gums....it's not the same view as an early december pike.....

[shawner]

     Well put esox, the second week of February was a ritual trip to Sodus for a good ten years and that's where we first noticed the tooth loss compared to earlier trips to Braddocks and Mendon which were early season regulars where the pike had a relatively full set give or take. The fish at Sodus seemed to have raw bellies too alot, for what reason I don't know,and even got a theory that they were in pre- spawn shallow and rubbing up their bellies protecting territory and loosing teeth from that as well. You'll never know what you'll here, but some of it will be legit and some won't.

     Billy's right that the myth is about them not feeding when they drop teeth or with sore gums, but its not true, they obviously have to feed whenever possible and do on dead and live bait, they are an opportunist and a very capable hunter, evolutionary success, the water wolf, oh yeah them pike are cool man!