Looks like Sanford is out now… and replaced w/ Hardy.

2009 PPT Tournament Schedule
(click on lake names for tournament information)

Devil's Lake (Lenawee Co) – Saturday, April 25th

Lake Cadillac & Lake Mitchell – Saturday, May 9th

Hardy Dam Pond – Saturday, September 26th

Muskegon Lake – Saturday, October 10th

I'm replying to the pike draft because of 3 reasons – 1) my favorite DNR fisheries fella told me to, 2) a conversation I had with Mr. Chad Sandy this summer and 3) Joe. If you wouldn't mind Joe, I wonder if you, as our resident pike expert, could post your response, or at least the highlights on our site? A bit embarrassed to say it, but I have about 15 pages (that I need to trim down) on the musky response, and I could use some material on the pike draft…and I may need a more statewide perspective since pike on the Titt chain is not like pike near the higher population densities down state.

Thanks, Pete and Hemi, I'm glad to sound off on pike management.

A slot such as the 24-34" one proposed has plenty of potential in theory, but only if compliance is high, which for the most part it hasn't been where this type of approach has been tried for pike (it has mostly ended up being whatever bag limit with no size restrictions). Many purely consumptive types, including spearers, just don't pass up good fish in the slot, but they have shown acceptance of stricter limits on their take of nice fish. Another risk is where recruitment is marginal (namely on waters with poor spawning habitat) and harvest pressure is high, and we have plenty of these waters especially in the southern part of the state, not enough fish could make it to 24" to benefit from the slot protection even if compliance is good.

Different approaches for different types of waters is of course ideal, like they've done for inland trout. But resistence to this for pike is strong, speaking from the 7 years invested into just getting the bag limit dropped to 2 (we wanted much more active management than that but had to settle for at least symbolic progress in the end).

In any case, taking into account the state's goal of simplicity; the habitat situation from south to north, as well as the angling pressure and growth rates from south to north, personally I think there's potential with the approach outlined below.

South of I-96 from Muskegon to Lansing, and I-69 from Lansing to Port Huron:

1 pike limit, 28" minimum (most pike waters left in this region are poor spawning habitat, lower numbers with high angling pressure, but faster growing fish)

North of that dividing line up to the bridge:

2 pike limit, no minimum but just one can exceed 24" (mixed waters but more with decent to high numbers, a min can be a detriment, but so can too much take, plus this targets the take toward at least some smaller fish likely to be males, versus targeting better fish like the min does now. Public buy-in should have a good chance since one can still take one good fish if they choose to).

Da' U.P.

3 pike limit, no minimum but just one can exceed 20" (mostly numbers waters with slow or even very slow growth, targeting more smaller fish should help, while restricting the take of better fish, and a 20" U.P. fish is often the same age or even older than fish at the thresholds above for further south)

So in most of the state this 3-tier approach recognizes that a minimum size is a disservice to more and more waters the further north one goes, leading to slower growth rates on numbers waters, yet too many in the bag limit presents risks given its essentially a year-round harvest (granted mostly in winter) and many pike waters are small. It's not perfect, more tailoring would be better, but for a simple approach that should do much better on more waters than a statewide 24" min, 2-pike limit, I like to think it has potential.

Thanks for listening if you made it this far. If you like it, or whatever your thoughts are, please tell the DNR…