Yet she has an affection for the prehistoric-looking thing that someday will become the main course for a family dinner (the Pikes had to bend the tail in order to fit it in the freezer). “That’s probably the worst-smelling fish I’ve ever smelt. According to Pike, they smell as bad as they look.
“We’re going to do a study this spring to look at population.”īurbot - known as the poor man’s lobster for its flaky, mild flavor - taste divine but look hideous. “Based on what we’re hearing, the burbot population may finally be rebounding,” he said. The lake was closed to burbot fishing for a while before reopening with a one-fish limit, Somerville said. “Back in the ’70s and ’80s Lake Louise was pretty heavily targeted because of liberal burbot regulations, and people would catch thousands of them and eventually crashed the stock.” “People have been catching more burbot the last few years,” he said. It’s known for burbot and lake trout in the winter, and burbot numbers have been on the rise in recent years, said Mark Somerville, Fish & Game’s Upper Copper River-Upper Susitna River area manager. The lake near Glennallen produced a state-record 24-pound, 12-ounce burbot in 1976. Mom isn’t a fan of ice fishing, though, so Aimee hadn’t fished in the winter until some family friends invited her to join them at Lake Louise late last month. Her mom, Kristi Olson Pike, once worked as a fishing guide in the Valley and goes by akfishergirl907 on Instagram. Pike, a fifth grader, is a second-generation angler. We’re obviously proponents of getting that younger generation out on the water.” “From our perspective, it’s really great to see kids getting out and going fishing. “Aimee should be real proud of that catch,” Ragan said. Ryan Ragan, a program coordinator for the Division of Sport Fish, said Pike’s catch is the biggest burbot, by both length and weight, to merit a youth certificate this winter. “It was not going to go out without a fight,” she said.įor her efforts, Pike received a certificate from the Alaska Fish & Game’s Trophy Fish program, which has been around since the 1960s but only recently started a special category for anglers 15 and younger. Pike struggled with the fish for a couple of minutes before getting it out of the water and onto the ice, where it flopped around for a while. My hands were going into the water with my pole and it was scaring me because I thought I was going to lose my pole, and it wasn’t my pole and reel.” It was such a big fish, and it definitely was pretty strong.
I could see a tail but I couldn’t identify what it was but I could see it squashing around. I had a stand and the stand was tipped over and the pole was going down in the water, and that gave me the assumption there was definitely a fish on the line, so I checked to see if there was a fish there, and there was,” she said, her words coming fast. What she found inside made her forget all about her gloves. Everyone was relaxing around a fire when Pike decided to get her gloves from a tent sheltering her fishing setup. It was around midnight on the last night of a three-day fishing trip, and everyone in the party of four had caught a fish but Pike. (Photo by Lacey Rego)Ī big fish deserves a big fish story, and we’re here to tell you how 11-year-old Aimee Pike of Wasilla used her bare hands to pull a 34.5-inch, 9.5-pound burbot out of the icy waters of Lake Louise last month. Updated: FebruPublished: February 5, 2021Īimee Pike shows off the 34.5-inch burbot she caught last month while ice fishing at Lake Louise.
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