Lol. Live an learn but here are a couple pointers to help you do so.
1) If your net is too small, don't use it. My buddy once yelled at me for chasing his 30 inch bull trout instead of trying to net it but I did so for a reason and that was to make sure it was tired and then I grabbed its tail. If I had gone for it with the trout net we had it would have gone similar to your pike which usually ends up with the hook snagged in the net and the fish swimming away from you. I wouldn't recommend trying a tail grab on a big pike but it would have been easy to pull her up into shallow water and grab her gill plate.
2) With pike there is a neat trick to hold them by the gill plate and then extend your middle/ring fingers pushing the pikes mouth open. It takes a bit of practice to perfect and the first couple times you have to be careful about finger placement but soon it becomes easy and it works better then a jaw spreader. I can't even remember the last time I used my jaw spreader, although I do still make sure to have it with me.
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