1) Do Northern Pike exhibit a home range?

2) What is the Northern Pike’s preferred habitat?

3) What are their movements summer/winter?

4) How does weather change affect the Northern Pike?

We started off our project by gathering information from previous fish tagging experiments posted on the Internet. Any information that we could gather pertaining to the catch, handling, and attachment of our transmitter to our select species of fish was among the

most useful.

This is a receiver made by ATS. It is a more compact model than the one we use but works on the same principles.

This is an antenna that connects to the receiver. It has 6 folding metal rods that lock in place to get the best signal.

Pike mainly live in shallow weedy areas. A good habitat is vital for the pikes survival. During spawning the pike spread their eggs randomly in very weedy areas. The eggs then stick to the weeds until they hatch. Once the eggs hatch the baby pike need to have a place to hide and find food, thick weed beds provide a excellent place for them.

Pike are known as cool water fish. During the summer months they usually move into deeper, cooler water. Some research shows that pike actually loose weight in warm water. For large pike growth a lake needs to have weedy areas and a “cool-water area” that has good oxygen saturation.

The Northern Pike is one of the most popular sport fish is Wisconsin, second only to the Muskellunge. The Northern Pike usually grows to a size of 3 ft. and a weight of 20 lbs.. The world record Pike was caught in Czechoslovakia. It weighed 55 lbs. 15 oz.

Since the pike is a popular game fish there are many tall tails. There was a story about a Emperor’s Pike that was 19 feet long and weighed 550 pounds. It was supposedly caught in 1497 in a pool near Hailprun, Suabia. Attached to the fish gill was a ring with a Greek inscription on it saying “I am the fish that was first put into this lake by the hands of the Emperor Fedrick II, on the 5th day of October, 1230.” That would make this fish 267 years old.

The Northern gets its name from a curved medieval weapon called the Pike. Besides being one of the top sport fish, it is a vicious predator, swallowing pretty much any living thing it can get its jaws around. Prey for this fish can be 1/3 to 1/2 times its size. No wonder this big guy is called the “Water Wolf.”

How do you tell a Northern apart from Muskellunge? It is fairly simple. Although they are very similar in size and shape, their markings are different. A Pike has a spotted side, while a Muskellunge tends to have a striped side.

Once we had our six transmitters ordered we set out on the ice of Lake Eau Claire and set out tip-ups. Once we caught 5 Northern Pike, which met our weight requirements, we tagged them and proceeded to track them using Radio Telemetry.

When we started off our project, we intended to apply our transmitters to our fish internally. However, we soon learned that we had neither the tools nor the experience to hope to perform surgery all of our fish and release them with 100% chance of survival. In turn, we gathered ideas about mounting them externally. That led to cutting PVC pipe into little mounting platforms for our transmitters. Once we smoothed off the edges, we drilled holes in either end and ran zip ties through them.

Radio Telemetry is a very useful tool when it comes to tracking animals and fish, but it isn’t magic. Like any other tool, it must be used the way it is supposed to for you to get your job done right. When we were out and picked up a signal, we swept our antenna back and forth to find the direction in which the signal came in the strongest, and measured that direction with a compass. After doing this for two or more different locations for each fish, we sat down and drew the intersecting lines on our map using our measurements and a protractor. Wherever those lines crossed was normally approximately where the fish was located.

Once we had the location of our fish marked on our field map, we documented each new location in our field book and on a grid map

that we made of Lake Eau Claire. On the back of that same map, we recorded all necessary available information, such as temperature,

time, and some weather conditions such as rain, snow, etc. Once we got what we needed from the lake, we headed back to the school to place our data into ArcView, a software package that specializes in pretty much anything and everything to do with maps. Previous to

ordering our transmitters, we got a map of Lake Eau Claire and layered it with bits of information about the lake. Once we apply all

necessary data, we can run Animal Movement Analysis and hopefully calculate a home range for our Northern Pike.

Collecting locations on our fish went smooth enough while there was ice on the lake, simply because we could take our personal automobiles out on the ice to collect our way-points. Some fish seemed to avoiding us entirely at times, but they were not complete failure stories.

Our major down time was when the ice thinned out and melted to where it was not safe to take either a small ATV or even a boat out on the ice/water, at least until the ice completely melted off. With the water completely open, of course we can go anytime as long as we have a boat and a registered person to take us.

From the time that we tagged the fish to the time the snow melted we were able to keep an eye on all five fish. Once the ice melted, however, we have not been able to find all 5 at once. Actually, one of the fish, frequency “682” has not been located for the past several weeks. This suggests that it either went upriver or was caught illegally.

A look at ArcView Analysis

The part that has the square around it is a good example of winter home range

This is the first step to the Site Fidelity test.

What you do is click on the theme that you what to test. Then go to Home range on your tool bar. After that all you need to do is click on Site Fidelity Test.

After you click on the test these two screens come up.

This box asks you how many applications do you want. That means how many different random walks would you like the computer to run, we used 3 on all our tests.

After you Click Ok on the other box this one will pop up. Here you need to tell the computer what the starting point for the simulation is. We chose Harmonic Mean, which is the middle of all the points.

After you have let the computer run the test a graph comes up. If the red line is in the middle of all the other ones the test worked.

This is what the results look like.(this is with two test each test having 3 applications.)

These tests are to see if the animals movements are random or territorial

This test is to see were the animal will most likely be in its range

This is the Kernel-Home range test. This test show you were this fish is most likely going to be located. In the blue areas there is a 95% chance of finding him and in the green and blue areas there is a 50% chance of finding him.

This is another example of kernel-home range.

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841 882 782 702 682Northern Pike Frequencies

Northern Pike Kernel Home Ranges (Islands Subtracted)

95% Range

50% Range

-http://spike.fa.gau.hu/~tejfol/halfajok.html-http://www.snorkelmichigan.com/about02.html-http://www.pikezander.co.uk/knots.htm-http://www.renu99.freeserve.co.uk/Windermere_Site1.htm-http://www.danica.com/pikefly/-http://www.davidmillerart.co.uk/pike_painting62.htmhttp://www.davidmillerart.co.uk/game_and_coarse_fish_paintings_.htm

All sites that supplied pictures

-http://spike.fa.gau.hu/~tejfol/halfajok.html-http://www.snorkelmichigan.com/about02.html-http://www.pikezander.co.uk/knots.htm-http://www.renu99.freeserve.co.uk/Windermere_Site1.htm-http://www.danica.com/pikefly/-http://www.davidmillerart.co.uk/pike_painting62.htmhttp://www.davidmillerart.co.uk/game_and_coarse_fish_paintings_.htm