Pike

In the family Esocidae are three popular American sport and food fish: pike, pickerel, and muskellunge. Also in this group are walleye and sauger. Pike is the most widely distributed freshwater fish in the world, found in North America, Europe, and northern Asia, usually in lakes and slowly moving streams. Pike have elongated, even serpentine, bodies and flattened heads with duck-billed jaws and sharp back-slanting teeth. Muskellunge (Esox masquinongy), nicknamed “muskie” by sport anglers, is the largest of the pikes, averaging between ten and thirty pounds, some trophy fish weighing sixty pounds. Muskellunge occurs naturally in the Great Lakes but has been introduced elsewhere.