The Legendary Giant Pike Of Ireland

Jonathan1990

Been watching a video on Youtube which I'll post about a legendary giant pike fish in Ireland that I knew nothing about. I've read where it says Ireland has the largest pikes around Europe. Wonder what part of Ireland this is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdTSAjac91E

firefly08

Jonathan1990 wrote: »

Been watching a video on Youtube which I'll post about a legendary giant pike fish in Ireland that I knew nothing about. I've read where it says Ireland has the largest pikes around Europe. Wonder what part of Ireland this is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdTSAjac91E

It's Lough Derg. The specimen cert in the video shows that the guy was from Tipperary.



Decades ago, as a child, I remember the widespread legend of a 92lb pike having being caught in Lough Derg by someone fishing for salmon, but it was supposedly a very long time ago. I don't remember any details but I have a feeling it was supposed to have happened in the 1920s.

EDIT...this was probably it - seems like I was a bit off about the time (it was the 1860s!). I'm sure I always heard the weight as having been 92 but I might have been mistaken.

Ipso

I always thought Pike were an invasive species, but it looks like these ones are native. Supposedly bucket biologists are responsible for the the populations in some of the smaller lakes.

Kaybaykwah

Ipso wrote: »

I always thought Pike were an invasive species, but it looks like these ones are native. Supposedly bucket biologists are responsible for the the populations in some of the smaller lakes.

You find them pikes invasive on account of their mugs, right?

Kylta

I don't know if people still eat pike. But it was a delicacy in the middle ages in england and france.

Peregrinus

Kylta wrote: »

I don't know if people still eat pike. But it was a delicacy in the middle ages in england and france.

You can eat it, but it's very bony and most people find it too much trouble.

Badly Drunk Boy

A friend of mine once told me about the biggest fish he ever caught, which was a pike. He'd heard about a big fish where he fished but never bothered with it, but one day he caught this huge pike and didn't know what to do with it. He kept it but did want to eat it himself so he offered it to anyone he thought might take it. He didn't get any takers so in the end he just buried it in his garden. He planted cabbages over the burial site...and they were haunted by the ghost of the fish! No, not really, they were just really huge cabbages, obviously from all the nutrients from the pike.

He said he always regretted not throwing it back in when he caught it...

firefly08 wrote: »

EDIT...this was probably it - seems like I was a bit off about the time (it was the 1860s!). I'm sure I always heard the weight as having been 92 but I might have been mistaken.

Surely nobody ever changed the details of a story?!? :pac:

topper75

I tried it years ago as a less-enlightened teen. Very bland. Folks in the middle ages hardly had much of a taste of the exotic though so to them it may have seemed flavoursome.

I still catch them but always release unharmed. They are getting smaller though. Thanks to Badly Drunk Boy's friend and the likes :-)

Whatever about bucket biologists, some salmon/trout nuts try to clear them out of lakes that they have been in long before man ever arrived in Ireland and think they are 'fixing' something. Shameful as they often play a key role in the ecology of salmonoid fisheries by taking weak and sick fish. Well enough alone please folks.

BobMc

I've an uncle who won Pike of the year back in the 80's he has it stuffed and mounted, I must ask him about its size and weight, and where he caught it, we're in Limerick so might have been Lower Shannon, leave with me a few days
and I'll ask him