Pike fishery management

An article related to managing pike as a fishery: http://www.startribune.com/minnesota-man-fishes-for-answers-to-threat-to-northern-pike/376565151/

As part of a minority, pike are actually my favorite fish. Sure would be nice to think of pike trips on this side of the Canadian border. I also think Rodney Dangerfield should get more respect too

Some interesting stats and this was one that caught my eye.
“Of the 97 northerns we caught by angling two winters ago,” Hudson said, “only seven hadn’t been caught before. The remaining 90 we had caught a combined 431 times.”

No surprise were responsible

At one time this was a great fishing lake,” Hudson said. “But it was essentially fished out. Too many fishermen taking too many fish.”

We want to catch new state records but we do nothing to grow a species. Just things to maintain harvest…

The state smallmouth bass record, for instance, was set in 1948 (8 pounds), the same year the bluegill record was established (2 pounds, 13 ounces). Meanwhile, the northern pike record was set in 1949 (45 pounds, 12 ounces), the walleye record was caught in 1979 (17 pounds, 8 ounces) and the sauger record was set in 1988 (6 pounds, 2 ounces).