Took a small pike for making pickled fish, and came home to a nice big cottontail that I snared in our black raspberries. He had been doing a lot of damage, but now he is going in pot !
You bet they are! The bigger ones are just as good for eating as the smaller ones, as well and really flakey and firm. In fact I fried up a walleye along with some pike last week for our family, and no one noticed any difference. I actually prefer pike, along with sunfish and perch because they are all firmer than walleye or crappie. We pickle, fry, bake, smoke, boil (poor man’s lobster), and pressure can pike. The knock on them is that they can get slimy prior to filleting them, and they have a strip of so-called “y” bones that need to be removed prior to cooking, but if saved for pickling or canning the y bones can be left in because they dissolve.
