Origin Of The Term "Jackfish"?
 

Just curious the origin of the term "Jackfish" for referring to Northern Pike? I have never heard the term used anywhere else in Canada except Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Don't know the origin but I grew up in Manitoba and Jacks is what we always called them. We also used pickerel instead of walleye. Never heard walleye till I moved to Alberta

I never heard the term walleye until I joined this forum. I grew up in Alberta and we called them pickerel when I was young.

Same growing up in Ontario. I always heard the term pickerel for walleye. My grandfather used to say walleye was an American term.

'Merican tourists used to come to Canada to fish for great northerns. We just called them jacks and threw most of them back. Always called them jacks in Manitoba. What we call Pickerel is properly known as Walleyed Pike, but don't know if anyone in Canada uses that term?


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We grew up in Manitoba calling them Walleye, and chain pickerel and grass pickerel simply pickerel .
Pike were jacks .
Cat

45 years in Alberta. As a kid growing up it was ALWAYS jack and pickerel. Now I feel kinda self conscious as to call them jack/pickerel or pike/walleye. Now a days I go with...... if the person I'm talking to is older than me it's jack/pickerel. If they are younger than me I go pike/walleye. I'm also sick of people on forums/Facebook groups correcting someone for saying pickerel..... ya we know, but thanks..... lol.

For me, if a guy calls a fish a jack. Snot rocket, slough shark or whatever I know he's talking about Pike .
If he is talking about 'eyes, pickerel , white tails ( when fishing) I know he is talking about walleye .
No biggy either way for me ...
Cat

Duh
 

Some people call the ammunition for your rifles "bullets" and you shooting fellas lose your minds. Not so discriminating when it comes to some other guys' sport.

A pickerel is a pickerel. And there is no such thing as a 'walleyed pike'. Furthermore, pike aren't even fish.

Grew up in Alberta. I don't recall hearing anyone from Alberta referring to walleye as pickerel. That seemed to be more of an eastern thing. Never made a lot of sense to me, as walleye aren't in the pickerel family.

Pike and "jack" seem to be used pretty much equally.

You must be under 40.

You are right. A pickerel looks like a Northern, and there is no resemblance to a Walleye at all. It figures the wrong terminology would come from the east. And when it comes to pike, their powerful and ferocious attitude definitely make them far superior to regular fish and they should be crowned with their own title. You can usually tell that you have a walleye due to the fight being so lack luster, definitely better if you have weak wrists though.

You must be young if you didn't hear pickerel growing up in Alberta. When I was a youngster everyone that I fished around in Alberta called them Pickerel. I can specifically still remember when my grandpa of all people heard something on the radio and said you know they're actually called walleye. I remember thinking that is impossible. But very shortly after there was a big shift in the province and pickerel has lost favor.

I still call them Jack though. That is so ingrained in me that when I do it on video I always have someone commenting from somewhere else on the globe asking, "What is a Jack." As far as I am concerned pike, jack, slough shark, hammer handle, jackfish... same deal.

I fish pickerel and jack.

i grew up calling pike either pike or jacks and walleye, walleye

Too funny. I'm 45 later this year and this is EXACTLY how I feel and what I do.

Indeed. 26.

Growing up in sask, we fished for pickerel and jack

My biology teacher pointed out that my jack (pike) was actually the pickerel


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_pickerel

never heard of a walleye until I started reading US magazines.

Well we always called em jack northern pike or slough shark ?
Walleye always walleye till leger on in m teens heard peopl us the term pickerel
In my opinion who cares as long as we both know what we r talking bout no matter what topic



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Cat?

Ok that's embarrassing I shoulda checked my spelling sorry guys. Later not legged


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Haven't heard that one or mabe I'm
Not sure any way not regularly


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Was sometime in the eighties that people finally started calling pickerel "walleye".

Others dont know jack.:);)

Ok so I wasn't trying to stir up an argument over fish names but obviously some just have to pick a fight? I was merely curious if anyone knew the origin of the "jack" nickname? How it came about? Growing up in the east I never heard the term. We knew of terms like "hammer handle" which was a reference to tiny sized pike. Mid sized were generally referred to as "gators" or "slimers" and the larger ones were generally just called Northern's or Pike. I first heard the term "jack" when I spent summer of '81 in Calgary as a 17 year old teenager working a summer job and fishing with co-workers on days off. Was just always curious about that nickname.

I'm the same (your earlier post) and in your generation as well. I think this generation has started to call fish by their common names. But when talking to old timers I use the old language of jacks, pickerel, conies and ling. Just depends on who you talk to and their age class

I'm 45, grew up in Calgary ...... Walleye were called Pickerel and the term Walleye didn't catch on until I was into my 20's maybe.

Pike were mostly called pike but the old timers called them Jackfish.

Most of born in the 70's inherited all the screwed up changes - like pickerel to walleye and imperial to metric ..... no wonder we are all screwed up.

Back when Alexander Mackenzie was exploring the west he hired a cook named Jack.
Now Jack liked to fish and Pike were abundant so more often then not it was pike he served at supper time, and so Pike became known as Jack's fish or jackfish.

I grew up calling Northern Pike, Jackfish and Walleye, Pickerel.

Later I learned that Pike are actually Pickerel and Walleye are Pike.
Then scientists discovered that Pike/Pickerel are actually Pike after all.

Now I'm like the stunned Woodpecker, I don't know which way to point my Pec**r, errr, Pike/Pickerel Pickerel/Pike

Well, someone could have at least made up a story of where the term "jackfish" came from.

Here in Canmore, everyone used to call Rocky Mountain Whitefish "Grayling". I don't know if that was just a local misidentification, or more wide-spread.

in the 70's that died out, bulls were called by some dollys and I now get weird looks when I say I'm fishing for ling