We found a HUGE fish Frozen in the Ice!
 

Hey everyone! Heres an action packed pike video for you with a cool/sad sight to see, check it out!>> Part II coming soon.
https://youtu.be/VfyMUPrJiwE

Suspect the big gal was a dead floater just prior to ice up,,, possibly a victim of hooking mortality?

Always saddens me to see a released fish go belly up,,, but with a typical 5 - 10% C&R mortality rate, 1 out every 10 - 20 fish is not going to make it.
At the end of the day though, the mortality rate of fish released into a frying pan is quite a bit higher,,, more like 100%!!!!!


Thanks for sharing.

It looked to be frozen a decent way under the ice. My guess is hooking mortality earlier in the ice season.

Big fish like that are especially prone to handling issues. You have to fight them longer in order to land them and they have a harder time dealing with the stress. People usually take too long trying to get pictures, weight and length measurements etc as well.

Possibly natural causes but looked to be a very healthy fish and didn't appear to be choking on another fish etc like you sometimes see.

Yeah I figured it happened earlier in the year on early ice because it's down near the bottom but still in the ice. It's quite a shame, theres no way to show how big that thing actually was except for drilling it out but it was definitely a large fish. I also found a crawfish frozen in the ice not far from the pike lol