Pike

The pike is the best-known native predator and a camouflaged ambush hunter that attacks its prey from a standstill with a lightning-fast lunge. In the Franconian Saale it does not hold in the main current but at calm, cover-rich spots such as groyne fields, backwaters, weed and reed zones, deep pits and areas below weirs. As an apex predator it feeds mainly on fish and thereby regulates the stocks in the water.

How to identify it

Unmistakable are the long, flat, duck-bill-like mouth with strong fangs and the dorsal and anal fins set far back at the rear of the body, facing each other just before the tail fin. The body is torpedo-shaped and camouflaged greenish to brownish with lighter markings.

Look-alikes

Practically unmistakable – the combination of the duck-bill-like mouth and the fins set right at the rear identifies the pike beyond doubt, even in juveniles, and no similarly built native species comes into question.