I don't do too much fresh water fishing anymore, but I do spend a lot of time dealing with toothy angry fish in the salt...
Here's what we use for wahoo, baracudas, small sharks and kings... All toothy line cutting thieves...
Tooth Proof Single Strand Wire. It is available in all tensile strengths... I'd imagine for pike something like a #4 wire around 35lb test would do nicely.
I use an albright knot to connect the braid to the wire. Make a loop in the wire and tie the albright as you normally would.
For connecting the lure/hook/ whatever you tossing to the bitter end, a haywire twist is used. If you bend a crank into the tag end of the twist you will be able to break the wire off clean when you've finished your haywire. This you get you through the weeds almost as neatly as a regular mono leader.
Good luck with the pike!
