Thought I share this article to anyone interested.
https://dailymontanan.com/2025/01/2...swim-through-alaskas-cook-inlet-study-proves/
https://dailymontanan.com/2025/01/2...swim-through-alaskas-cook-inlet-study-proves/
Invasive specie a threat to salmon.
- Thread starter tlindsey
- Start date
So what now we are going to get new people asking can my pike live in brackish water?
Meh… nothing new here… i wouldn’t call them invasive either. Pike love salt content in water. Little known to most they are actually a pelagic species in alot of their ranges. Alaska is no different and a pretty typical enviornment for them IMO… following most of what americans know about pike, which is little to nothing 
… im not surprised with the article being new news for anyone over here in the states.
In completely fresh water systems pike will find and congregate around any inlet with salt content ie. A stream or spring. Where rivers meet oceans they will gladly go out and feed and do as they wish in brackish water. They can stay there pretty much indefinitely and will only return back up river to spawn. Nothing invasive here… there native and are doing what there supposed to and have done since before we were here. Id wager the pike always were native to wherever there “discovering” them now and people just blamed other people for releasing them there. Sounds pretty american to me…
Baffling tho that “fish biologists” cant figure things like this out when the info is very easily accessible on things like the errr internet lol… Pelagic pike fishing is huge in other countries.
… im not surprised with the article being new news for anyone over here in the states. In completely fresh water systems pike will find and congregate around any inlet with salt content ie. A stream or spring. Where rivers meet oceans they will gladly go out and feed and do as they wish in brackish water. They can stay there pretty much indefinitely and will only return back up river to spawn. Nothing invasive here… there native and are doing what there supposed to and have done since before we were here. Id wager the pike always were native to wherever there “discovering” them now and people just blamed other people for releasing them there. Sounds pretty american to me
… Baffling tho that “fish biologists” cant figure things like this out when the info is very easily accessible on things like the errr internet lol… Pelagic pike fishing is huge in other countries.
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I've read on several occasions that pike in Europe and the British Isles have been known to enter brackish or marine water on at least a temporary basis. Why is it so surprising that it might happen elsewhere? Especially in areas like the one in question, where numerous freshwater rivers empty into the sea within close proximity of one another, and where salinity may temporarily drop lower than normal due to spring snowmelt and runoff.
Anyone who has ever speared pike...a common way of taking them when I was a kid...knows that big adults during spring spawning will skitter far up the tiniest rivulets and puddles in only inches of water. It doesn't take a major flooding event for them to spread; we recently barbecued a smallish one that I intercepted on my lawn as it rocketed across the yard like a torpedo, in water not deep enough to cover its back, heading from the big drainage ditch 100 yards away towards my little backyard pond.
And why now? Are they suggesting that these conditions have never existed in the past, and that this is somehow my fault? I mean, virtually every potential ecological "disaster" is eventually traced back to my use of toilet paper or my consumption of meat or some other heinous act. Although the article mentions the testing that shows the original big female had spent time at sea, before re-entering fresh water and breeding up a storm. I naively think that she didn't do that all by herself, but it certainly offers a plausible alternative to the standard "somebody introduced them!" battle cry.
If the pike can get from river to river by a bit of seafaring...why on earth are they only doing it now? Hard to swallow. And if they are doing it naturally, are they really "invasive"? That term usually refers to non-native organisms taking hold somewhere they don't belong and did not reach themselves.
When I grew up in southern Ontario, coyotes were relatively uncommon, compared to their numbers today. They have spread under their own steam from their original strongholds in the West and are now all the way into the Maritimes, including even Newfoundland. Nobody suggests they are "invasive"...although plenty of other less-flattering terms are often used.
Anyone who has ever speared pike...a common way of taking them when I was a kid...knows that big adults during spring spawning will skitter far up the tiniest rivulets and puddles in only inches of water. It doesn't take a major flooding event for them to spread; we recently barbecued a smallish one that I intercepted on my lawn as it rocketed across the yard like a torpedo, in water not deep enough to cover its back, heading from the big drainage ditch 100 yards away towards my little backyard pond.
And why now? Are they suggesting that these conditions have never existed in the past, and that this is somehow my fault? I mean, virtually every potential ecological "disaster" is eventually traced back to my use of toilet paper or my consumption of meat or some other heinous act. Although the article mentions the testing that shows the original big female had spent time at sea, before re-entering fresh water and breeding up a storm. I naively think that she didn't do that all by herself, but it certainly offers a plausible alternative to the standard "somebody introduced them!" battle cry.
If the pike can get from river to river by a bit of seafaring...why on earth are they only doing it now? Hard to swallow. And if they are doing it naturally, are they really "invasive"? That term usually refers to non-native organisms taking hold somewhere they don't belong and did not reach themselves.
When I grew up in southern Ontario, coyotes were relatively uncommon, compared to their numbers today. They have spread under their own steam from their original strongholds in the West and are now all the way into the Maritimes, including even Newfoundland. Nobody suggests they are "invasive"...although plenty of other less-flattering terms are often used.
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No offense intended; I was making the comparison to coyotes just to show how the terminologies are used, misused, etc.
I just think it likely that this has happened before, and will happen again, regardless of how much money the gummint spends or how much they publicize the story.
I just think it likely that this has happened before, and will happen again, regardless of how much money the gummint spends or how much they publicize the story.
Id wager higher temps are yielding less salmon more so than the pike. They didn’t just become pelagic over night all over the world.
in Alaska, Northern Pike are both native, as well as invasive species.
www.adfg.alaska.gov
I've got to say, having caught a few thousand of this species over the years, in numerous bodies of water, I've yet to catch any in salt water.
Tough fish doesn't surprise me, they survived the 60's & 70's swimming in the Detroit River. lol
Invasive Northern Pike, Alaska Department of Fish and Game
Alaska Department of Fish and Game
I've got to say, having caught a few thousand of this species over the years, in numerous bodies of water, I've yet to catch any in salt water.
Tough fish doesn't surprise me, they survived the 60's & 70's swimming in the Detroit River. lol