30in Pike reg on Mille Lacs is problematic

The following is from one of our AFH members and I agree with him.
Pike under 24 inches long are the fastest growing , most productive, and most destructive portion of the pike population. They are not as likely to be harvested because the top of the ten pike limit is set way too high at 30 inches. This will focus too much harvest on the medium size pike from 26 to 30 inches and substantially reduce recruitment to larger size pike. All I will say about the one over 30 inch pike per day is it represents an absolute disaster in the making. It will lead to a collapse of the already dropping percentage of large pike in the population. Most anglers were catching and releasing large pike on Mille Lacs now with spearing being added that will change. The new regulation should have been one over thirty inches ” per year” , and up to ten northern pike daily less than 26 inches long for at least two years so the impact of spearing harvest could be assessed. I am not against spearing on Mille Lacs, but this liberal of an approach to killing off large pike that are already trending downward in numbers and size makes no sense at all. Small pike(under 24 inches long) that now make up 60% of the pike gillnet catch ( they were just 28% in 2011)and could easily double in numbers instead of producing the desired results for the pike regulation.

Why is every one such a critic ???? The DNR knows exactly what there doing!!!

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Why is every one such a critic ???? The DNR knows exactly what there doing!!!

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Vern i was under the impression that there are to many big pike in mille lacs. Are you saying this is false?

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Vern i was under the impression that there are to many big pike in mille lacs. Are you saying this is false?

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There is no such thing as too many big pike!

In this case, I think they do. They are eliminating the competition in order to accelerate the walleye comeback. Bass guys won’t mind, since very few people harvest smallies, don’t think that change will do any harm or good. Pike will probably see the majority of population change, which is probably part of the walleye solution.

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In this case, I think they do. They are eliminating the competition in order to accelerate the walleye comeback. Bass guys won’t mind, since very few people harvest smallies, don’t think that change will do any harm or good. Pike will probably see the majority of population change, which is probably part of the walleye solution.

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+1 I believe the 20″-30″ Pike often compete with Walleyes for food, 30″-40″ers do not necessarily.

It seems to me, you don’t need a huge population of Pike to have big Pike.

If they’re going to ease the restrictions on Northerns, why don’t they bundle the Muskies in there as well?? They’ll be eating a lot more walleye as well with the reduced numbers of forage fish… Looks like the poor Northerns don’t have the lobbyists that Muskies do!

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If they’re going to ease the restrictions on Northerns, why don’t they bundle the Muskies in there as well?? They’ll be eating a lot more walleye as well with the reduced numbers of forage fish… Looks like the poor Northerns don’t have the lobbyists that Muskies do!

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It’ll be a world class musky and smallie lake for years to come. I see the walleye taking a very long time to recoup unless all predatory fish are managed equally. Which is impossible to do if no-one harvests musky and smallies.

Granted I do not target pike very often on mille lacs but when we do I dont recall every catching one under 30″

Buzz, I agree.

Also, generally speaking…

There is no such thing as too many big pike because 1) big pike basically self-regulate from a population standpoint, and 2) big pike keep the rest of the system in check, namely small pike.

Muskies of all sizes function as big pike in a system.

Big pike/muskies typically don’t eat many walleyes. Small pike and bass eat lots of small walleyes.

The Pike regs have me scratching my head. I haven’t caught a Pike under 30″ on Mille Lacs in years, but it seems like the DNR is saying there is an over abundance of small Pike in the system.

I fish a few stocked walleye lakes that are full of these smaller pike. Shouldn’t they be the lakes with a 10 fish limit?

Not sure why they did not do a restricted slot like other lakes have say all 30-36 go back. The lake I have a cabin on has a protective slot and it has helped a lot on the quality of the fish.

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Big pike/muskies typically don’t eat many walleyes.

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Not sure about that the bigger northern seem to like to grab my walleyes when I am reeling them in.

Given the number of small pike in Mille Lac’s the goal should be to reduce pike under 24 inches.I would set the limit on them to be unlimited. Looks to me like they are tired of all the criticism from walleye anglers and want to extend it to bass and pike anglers. I can imagine the DNR Fisheries meeting they had: When asking for suggestions, this came up. “lets pit the bass and pike guys against the walleye guys, maybe they will back off on us”

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The Pike regs have me scratching my head. I haven’t caught a Pike under 30″ on Mille Lacs in years, but it seems like the DNR is saying there is an over abundance of small Pike in the system.

I fish a few stocked walleye lakes that are full of these smaller pike. Shouldn’t they be the lakes with a 10 fish limit?

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Belle Taine…

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Given the number of small pike in Mille Lac’s the goal should be to reduce pike under 24 inches.I would set the limit on them to be unlimited. Looks to me like they are tired of all the criticism from walleye anglers and want to extend it to bass and pike anglers. I can imagine the DNR Fisheries meeting they had: When asking for suggestions, this came up. “lets pit the bass and pike guys against the walleye guys, maybe they will back off on us”

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It appears the DNR is attempting to target a specific year class of pike. I wonder if this year class will be reaching maturity in the near future? Go after the next year’s spawners, and you’ll have fewer pike the following years. If the smaller year classes are so large, then throwing in the net now, so to speak, will help lower the numbers of up and coming spawners.

I personally think its smart, but I seldom target pike, and hate losing baits to them.

Here are a few reasons I believe the DNR used in making the call on the new Mille Lacs pike regs.
1) Spearing on a slot lake (like the common 24-36″ slot on many MN lakes) puts many anglers at risk of accidentally spearing a fish in the slot thinking it is smaller or larger than it actually is. So many anglers choose to avoid spearing on such bodies of water.
2) The 1 pike over 30″ is consistent with the state-wide regs.
3) Net Data for Pike in Mille Lacs shows that roughly 75% of the pike sampled are 29″ or less
4) While larger pike play an important role in natural management of a fishery, high numbers of smaller pike tend to have an extremely negative impact on overall growth in a fishery.
5) Being able to go to the only lake in MN that allows you to legally take 10 pike in one day may help keep enough people coming to Mille Lacs and help keep the local economy alive just long enough to rehabilitate the walleye population.

Ben the trouble with your theory is the DNR hasn’t acknowledged the walleye Problem or a solution for fixing it.

I couldn’t agree with you more Brian, just stating some of the likely reasoning behind their decision on the pike… it seems a lot of the focus on the issue is going into “Why not this size?” or “Why so many?” The real question should be as you mentioned, “How is this going to help the walleye population?” But we know their answer on that will be “We don’t know.”

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I couldn’t agree with you more Brian, just stating some of the likely reasoning behind their decision on the pike… it seems a lot of the focus on the issue is going into “Why not this size?” or “Why so many?” The real question should be as you mentioned, “How is this going to help the walleye population?” But we know their answer on that will be “We don’t know.”

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There is a regulation in effect in MN that does not allow the DNR to set Northern Pike slot limits on any additional lakes until the year 2021.

There are 116 lakes in MN that can have slots – the total to pick from, of which 100 of those lakes can actually have a Northern Pike Slot limit.

I do not know if Mille Lacs is one of the 116 lakes? If not, that certainly is an explanation to why there is no additional slot limit set for the Northern Pike on Mille Lacs.

As stated above, one of the best methods of controlling an abundant small pike population is to have a healthy population of large pike. Large Pike keep small Pike numbers in check.

The DNR can change Pike limits, and the 30″ Pike regulation is statewide, but additional Pike slot regulations are not allowed on any “additional” lakes when the bill was passed. The bill was not supported by the DNR when passed.

I’m not sure where that line is between small pike and large pike? But to help the future Walleye fishery on Mille Lacs, small pike removal will help, large pike remaining will also help.

Part of the reason to relax the pike regs on Mille Lacs was to give the commercial interests something to work with for survival.

That’s an excellent point as well Burr. I forgot about that bit of legislation when writing my post. That would definitely be the most significant factor in not changing the size limit in the new regs for Mille Lacs.