It took Tim Hicks three decades to catch the fish he had been picturing since childhood. On June 13 the 44-year-old from Post Falls pulled a 49.75-inch northern pike from the deep, cold water of Lake Pend Oreille — a fish long enough to claim Idaho's catch-and-release state record and to finally match a family legend.
"I've been looking for this fish for over 30 years – ever since my dad Dennis caught the Idaho record 49-inch pike weighing 38 pounds, 9 ounces in 1992," Hicks said in a statement released by Idaho Fish and Game.
Dennis Hicks landed that fish on Coeur d'Alene Lake, and it had loomed over his son ever since. The new record edged out the previous catch-and-release mark — Scott Blahnik's 49-inch pike from 2020 — by three-quarters of an inch. Since the fish was released, officials scored it by length; Hicks put its weight at roughly 35 pounds, though it never touched a scale.
He was fishing a pike tournament alongside his brother Steve when it hit, and the take was almost nothing.
"I felt a slight 'tick' of a strike," he said. The fight was another matter. "The fish made several big runs around my boat, and then a strong power run at the end pulling drag off my reel."
When the pike was finally netted, the pair sensed it was special. "He thought it might be a state record, so we looked it up on the Idaho website, and sure enough it was," Hicks said.
Season and location worked in his favour. The pike in this deep lake spawn late, and his had only just wrapped up. "My fish had just spawned — its tail was all torn up — so it didn't fight as hard as it would have at other times of the year. That helped," he told Wired2Fish. "They spawn late on Pend Oreille because it's so deep and cold."
Idaho is trout-and-salmon country in most anglers' minds, and Hicks thinks pike get short-changed for it.
"I've fished for northern pike my whole life here in Idaho. They get overshadowed by the trout and salmon, but we have some big northerns here, too," he said. He has followed the fishery as it has grown. "I've been fishing Pend Oreille since the northerns really took hold about 10 years ago. I've caught some big fish but nothing like this one."
Asked when to target them, he kept it simple. "April through June and October and November are our best times for northern fishing. That's when the big ones will usually be most active."
The state logs two pike records — one for certified weight, one for catch-and-release length — and only the length record moved this summer. The weight record, a 40.76-pound pike taken by Thomas Francis at Hayden Lake in March 2023, is untouched.
Hicks already has a plan for the wall where his father's fish hangs.
"I'm going to have a replica mount made of my fish and hang it on the wall right next to my dad's fish," he said.