This issue didn’t get enough floor time. IMO.
But I do know the bowfishers sure had their ears perked up!
Ya know Buzz, I fish the river almost exclusively.
I didn’t realize this was much of a problem.
The metro area, and some smaller lakes in the Hackensack area, I don’t really see too much of a problem. I catch plenty of 10#+ fish on every lake I’ve been. The smaller fish will outnumber them 20-1, but they are there. I think most common people who go up to the cabin 1-2x year and fish nothing but unproductive shorelines of course the only thing you are going to catch are snakes!!
Spearing is always brought up as a cause for lack of size. You think if that was the case taking the larger fish out, hence the prime spawners would decrease the overall population. Heck I don’t know.
Liberalize 20″ and smaller limits. Encourage pickling.
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Liberalize 20″ and smaller limits. Encourage pickling.
Pickled Northern Yum!!!
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I have fished on a lake where this was a problem in the past. The DNR actually increased the limit to 6 northerns for about 5 years or so and put a slot on that they had to be under 20″ which really help to eliminate a good portion of the small fish and also increase the overall size of the fish. I wish they would do this on more lakes to help the problem.
I fish quite regularly on a lake where this was a real problem. No limit changes, but the lake association encouraged everyone to keep all northerns. We did that, and most everyone else did, too. In 5-6 seasons, we gradually saw not only bigger pike, but the sunfish & crappie population grew, too. It’s not uncommon now, to find schools of bigger panfish, and while you are fishing for them, latch onto a hungry pike in the 3-6 pound range. And we have seen much bigger pike in our searches. I heard a biologist say, ” think of it this way. If a lake can support 1000 pounds of fish, you can have 1000 one pounders, or 100 ten pounders. But the total will remain the same unless other factors are figured into play.” It kind of makes sense. Just my two cents worth.
Lakes that dont have walleyes in them to begin with and have alot of other fish like northerns and largemouth etc…. and we try to introduce walleyes to them or even increase the number of walleye in some lakes that dont have a huge population, is going to be hard to accomplish because stocked walleyes normally tend to hangout closer to the weed sand therefore are more impacted by largemouth and northerns. Walleyes that annually live in lakes and spawn there tend to grow up withtheir year classes and follow the deep structure living and deep flat feeding that most walleyes do. Dont get me wrong here i am going offthings i have read but i believe in this because i fish lakes with stocked walleyes only and lakes that have had walleyes long before i was around.
I hope this helps and I read that in books so its prolly not true because i didnt read it on the interent.
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The metro area, and some smaller lakes in the Hackensack area, I don’t really see too much of a problem. I catch plenty of 10#+ fish on every lake I’ve been. The smaller fish will outnumber them 20-1, but they are there. I think most common people who go up to the cabin 1-2x year and fish nothing but unproductive shorelines of course the only thing you are going to catch are snakes!!
Spearing is always brought up as a cause for lack of size. You think if that was the case taking the larger fish out, hence the prime spawners would decrease the overall population. Heck I don’t know.
not to start a brew-ha here but……I be a spear chucker and love it. for what its worth there are studies that say the size difference between pike taken by spear people and line fisherman are within a pound.
I guess what I don’t understand is why the DNR can’t analyze the data they already have. They know what it takes to sustain a population. Test netting tells them the population and size of the species. They know the acreage of the lake. Why can’t they plug the numbers in and set the limits accordingly? If a lake has a over abundance of Pike REQUIRE a catch and keep slot limit.
If they can manage Walleye (which some will debate) they sure should be able to manage pan fish, Pike, Bass ect.
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Liberalize 20″ and smaller limits. Encourage pickling.
x2 with Pug here.
I’m in a minority but pike are my favorite fish. Some day I would like to target pike in MN instead of crossing the Canadian border.
My humble opinion is we’ve created the snake problem by keeping the larger pike. This leads to problems with the overall fishery. We’ve got to be the ones to fix it.
I see two paths that can help.
One is quoted above to set a top size limit. We commonly protect the breeder size walleye but not pike???
The other is CPR(catch, photo, release). Musky fisherman have shown us the way but we fail to follow.
one man’s opinion 
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The metro area, and some smaller lakes in the Hackensack area, I don’t really see too much of a problem. I catch plenty of 10#+ fish on every lake I’ve been. The smaller fish will outnumber them 20-1, but they are there. I think most common people who go up to the cabin 1-2x year and fish nothing but unproductive shorelines of course the only thing you are going to catch are snakes!!
Spearing is always brought up as a cause for lack of size. You think if that was the case taking the larger fish out, hence the prime spawners would decrease the overall population. Heck I don’t know.
not to start a brew-ha here but……I be a spear chucker and love it. for what its worth there are studies that say the size difference between pike taken by spear people and line fisherman are within a pound.
Let alone the fact that in Mn there are about 16,000 dark house licenses sold per year vs. a million plus angling licenses.
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Liberalize 20″ and smaller limits. Encourage pickling.
x2 with Pug here.
I’m in a minority but pike are my favorite fish. Some day I would like to target pike in MN instead of crossing the Canadian border.
My humble opinion is we’ve created the snake problem by keeping the larger pike. This leads to problems with the overall fishery. We’ve got to be the ones to fix it.
I see two paths that can help.
One is quoted above to set a top size limit. We commonly protect the breeder size walleye but not pike???
The other is CPR(catch, photo, release). Musky fisherman have shown us the way but we fail to follow.one man’s opinion
Larger Pike size structure seems to lead to quality panfish as well. Pike ARE great eating.
So far the comments seem to be: start keeping smaller fish, stop harvesting bigger fish – be it by spear or hook and line, and don’t stock walleyes in Bass and Pike lakes. Any more?
Tie the tubes of all females before releasing them?
I think at the Roundtable someone brought up something like that. He said we need to keep them from spawning. So, hence I have an idea.
Since most stocked walleye lakes don’t have much spawning habitat. Let’s forget about what we might due to the walleyes reproductive system. Instead we treated the stocked fry with a chemical that acts like a birth control pill in Northern Pike. This way we have few Pike and women who eat a lot of fish won’t need to worry about becoming pregnant. Hence(again)more recreational midnight activity?
By Golly you DO have a sense of humor Buzz!! 
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