How to draw a pike step by step

The pike is one of the most well-known freshwater predatory fish. It is found throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere. It inhabits almost all bodies of water, and its population is high everywhere. The only places where pike are absent are mountain rivers, ponds that freeze to the bottom, and certain bodies of water where the water periodically overheats. That said, even here you can sometimes find young pike.

The fact is that pike spawn in early spring, but not all at once. Young pike are the first to spawn, followed by older fish, and the largest, most mature individuals spawn last. Pike inhabiting rivers and lakes also spawn at different times. Usually, river pike spawn last. In general, pike spawn when the water temperature ranges from 1–4°C to 10–14°C. Spawning coincides with the spring migration of waterfowl, and the sticky pike eggs are carried by the birds from one body of water to another. Sometimes pike fry can be found in a forest marsh or a deep puddle where ducks, waders, or snipes rest on their way to their nesting grounds.

The key to drawing a pike lies in capturing the correct proportions of this predatory fish! But pike aren’t destined to live long here. Either, having grown utterly famished, they’ll eat one another, or the puddle will dry up; and even if they’re lucky, the young pike will survive, at best, until the first hard frosts, when all the marsh water turns to ice.

But not every egg stuck to a duck’s feathers faces such a sad fate. A lot of pike roe ends up in bodies of water where there is plenty of food, no competitors, and, most importantly, no fishermen to bother them. Under such conditions, a three-millimeter egg grows into a 20- to 30-centimeter fish in six months. After a year, the pike reaches 40–50 cm. It continues to grow throughout its life, though its growth rate slows with age. From the age of five or six, a pike gains only 3–7 cm per year, but it noticeably increases in volume and becomes heavier.

But how long a pike lives is unknown. It is believed that European pike can live up to 20–25 years, reaching lengths of 1–1.5 meters and weights of 15–20 kilograms. And that’s in Europe, where there’s a spinning rod with a spoon lure for every pike. What more can be said about the unexplored Siberian lakes? How can one not believe the stories of the locals about monsters that devour swans, or about beasts that drag goats and calves that have come to drink into the depths?

Good old Europe hasn’t stayed silent on this matter either. Who hasn’t heard the story of Emperor Frederick II Barbarossa’s pike, which he personally tagged and released into a lake in 1230? Two and a half centuries (!) later, it was caught again. White with age and covered in algae, the pike—measuring either 3 meters or 5 meters in length—weighed either 150 kg or 280 kg. That was a long time ago, which is why the information that has come down to us is contradictory. Another European record-holder—a pike from Lake Kaiserswaag, which weighed 180 kg in life—amazed curious visitors for many years with its nearly four-meter-long skeleton, displayed for all to see at the Mantey Museum.

But, much to the disappointment of those who love a good sensation, the skeleton turned out to be a fake. Some clever prankster had pieced it together from the remains of nearly forty large—but perfectly ordinary—pike. What a shame! Every angler dreams of landing a catch like that, and after all, everyone’s biggest trophy is still out there to be caught.

Now let’s get started on drawing the pike right away!