“As soon as that northern pike eats any of the minnows,” Matity says, “he breaks the alarm system cells on the minnow’s mucus layer. While most anglers wash their hands and lures to remove the odour of a northern pike, thinking it scares away other fish, Jeff Matity tips his lures with a thin strip of pike belly So, it is as much or more of a visual clue, I suggest to Matity, as it is a scent-related one. But when that same pike wakes up and starts cruising the mid-depth, flexing his jaws, the minnows go on alert.” When the pike are laying on the bottom, in a non-assuming position, just sitting there breathing, probably dreaming, the minnows are lying beside them and eating. “But I’ve studied them in the aquarium at the Fish Behavioural Lab at the University of Saskatchewan and there are many times when the fathead minnows are lying right beside the pike. “When a big pike is moving around, flexing his jaws and giving everybody the evil eye,” says Matity, “Yah, that is when the hair goes up on the backs of their necks and they probably hunker down.
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