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How often have you gone fishing and caught a large northern pike, only to return it to the water hesitantly, because you either don’t know how to fillet it, or know that the Y-bone can be a problem?

Last weekend, I went fishing on my lake at home, and my sisters didn’t want to fish for anything except for pan fish like crappies and bluegills. I, on the other hand, wanted to try my luck at trolling around the lake for northern pike. Finally on Sunday before I returned back to the Twin Cities, I got to head out on the to lake and attempt to catch a few northerns.

We fished for about an hour or so, and we caught about six, but we only kept four between the three of us. We raced back to the dock because the weather was looking rather gloomy. I headed up to garage to fillet the fish, and I suddenly remembered: it’s been about five years since I had filleted a northern, and although I thought I remembered how to remove the epipleural, or “y-bones.” I was in for a struggle. I did manage to fillet the fish, although I ended up with several long, skinny pieces, instead of the long, broad fillets that I remembered.

So, here are a few resources to learn about northern pike.

What is a Northern Pike? (Wikipedia)

How to fillet a Northern Pike (YouTube) This is the best one of the four.

But if you are searching for a diagram or several pictures to print, here are three other sites to check:

How to Fillet Northern Pike (OnTheLake.net)

How to remove the Y-bone Northern Pike Fishing (Northern-Ontario.com)

How to fillet Northern Pike to remove “Y” bones (burnettcounty.com)