Qpma quality pike management?

[gamebird_guy]

http://www.cadillacnews.com/articles/2009/03/31/news/763616.txt


Throw back all pike from 24 to 34 inches? They want to promote a trophy pike fishery but does that mean keep all fish under 24 inches? And back to 5 limit, this is just stupid.:rant:

[headbanger421]

[quote=gamebird_guy;2642619]http://www.cadillacnews.com/articles/2009/03/31/news/763616.txt


Throw back all pike from 24 to 34 inches? They want to promote a trophy pike fishery but does that mean keep all fish under 24 inches? And back to 5 limit, this is just stupid.:rant:[/quote

This plan is meant to help cure the problem of stunted fish and allowing fish to get to a trophy size. Believe it or not this is a good thing. Would you rather catch a 28" pike or a 40"?

[brigeton]

This should help Lakes like Mitchell & Houghton that are full of 18"-20" pike & you rarely get one bigger.

[fishinthed]

All for it! :fish::fish:

How many MA pike do you hear of caught from inland lakes below mid-state? Lots of reports of lakes that are overrun with hammer-handles, though.

[Kenifish2]

IMO, it could be a double edged sword, may be good for some lakes, may be detrimental to others, the DNR has the ability to screw this up. Fisherman could make a difference by keeping the 24-30" range and letting the bigger ones go, my 2 cents.

[headbanger421]

The problem is that we have far too many undersized fish. This is explained in the DNR management draft where these undersized fish become sexually mature at an early age(1 year) and thus begins the cycle of stunting the species. A so called "thinning of the herd" in the undersized category should fix the problem pike maturing too young. The slot limit would allow for fish from 24-30 or 34" to grow to good sizes, sizes that would make for a trophy type fishery. This type of thing will be good for everyone when instead of catching a bunch of 20-24" inch fish you have a good chance of hooking into a 40" being a good possibilty. I personally think that is a good thing.

[fishinthed]

Good point, kenifish and headbanger. It would best vary by the body of water and/or region. Some lakes such as Kent Lake, that surveys indicate have smallish populations that have a good size distribution can do without the 5 fish limit. But then, how many people catch 5 pike in a day in such lakes? I've never caught a dink in there, but I've caught or lost good ones.

I still like the slot limits overall, whatever the bag limit. The last thing we need for pike management is to thin the population of nice sized pike any waters. Trophy fish are taken rarely enough that 34+ inch fish being taken is not such a biggie, especially since they're such a pain to fillet. ;):fish:

After all, if few of the pike exceed 5 lbs, may as well just fish for bass. Probably catch more pike then anyway... :p

[gamebird_guy]

what would be the sense of keeping hammer handles? Just to get them out of the lake? Very few pike less than 24 inches have enough meat on them to fillet. I say if they want to eliminate some fish drop it to 20 inches the you can keep the few fat 20 inchers, raise the limit back to 5, inplement some kind of a limited slot where only 1 or 2 fish can be within that slot. This just reminds me of QDMA where individuals want every one else in the world to follow their belief system. I think a lake with alot of small pike has a successful nursery and is a healthy population, with as many small bluegill and perch and minnows available I don't see how it is possible to have stunted pike. I see and catch plenty of legal pike in Cadillac, Mitchell, Hougton and surrounding lakes so I'm not buying into this at all.

[fishinthed]

I read the article linked in the 1st post, and I can see you're coming from a spear fisher's perspective, gamebird_guy. Which I've no objection to if it's for the table. I know very well how good pike are to eat. :corkysm55

I could see the sense in a separate spearing & ice fishing season with similar regs to what we have now, except I'd just as soon eliminate the size limit, so folks could take 2 pike of any size they want if the want to fill their table. I think this would amount to a very small percentage of the pike harvest anyway, and it would be at a time when a fair percentage of the population is likely to die off anyway. Less competition for the available oxygen.

In other words, modify the soft water hook and line regs (which would apply to a vast majority of fishers) toward trophy sport fishing ends, and enable the spearing & ice fishing harvest for food to continue more-or-less as it is, say from Jan 1 through March 15.

Might just end up being surprised at how many 34+ inchers there are for the table, if they're allowed to grow to that size. :D :fish:

And yes, there are a lot of bodies of water that are overpopulated with small pike, and have few real good ones.

The DNR is taking comments. I might just send in a comment favoring such a "split season."

[headbanger421]

I think a lake with alot of small pike has a successful nursery and is a healthy population, with as many small bluegill and perch and minnows available I don't see how it is possible to have stunted pike.

The reason for stunted fish has nothing to do with available forage and everything to do with the fact that because of overpopulation due to highly successful reproduction, pike reach sexualy maturity at too young an age and worry only about reproduction and not becoming larger fish. I don't know if you read the DNR plan or not but it answers a lot of these questions. The plan does talk about a slot limit where you can keep up to 5 fish from let's say 16-20 or 24", the 24-34" get left alone to grow and you can keep one over 34". The increase in daily bag limit should make up for the meat you'd be losing on smaller fish and help manage the population of smaller fish contaminating genetics by reproducing too early. This should straighten out the issue of smaller fish. In the end this will make pike fishing better for everyone and if there were quality pike fishing in Michigan people from out of state might want to pay money to come here. Read the DNR plan if you haven't and leave some feedback, maybe you do have a good idea to add to this plan that makes everyone happy.

[fishinthed]

Let's also not forget that one 12lb fish should have about as much meat as two 6lb fish... actually effectively a bit more, due to less waste during cleaning (more relative precision).

This has been a good discussion. It has helped me to view the issues from a different perspective, and better understand where people who fish for different reasons than I are coming from. ;) :fish:

[huntsaver]

If this works I've got a couple lakes that need to be next! How do you sign up? One lake we set tip ups on and caught over 30 in a half day with the biggest about 19 inches. That same lake "used" to be awesome for gills and crappie, but it's about worthless now.