40 inches is awesome, Walt!
And Will, yes a maximum size would seem best on prolific waters, a conservative one big fish approach on low numbers waters, managing them like muskies on those type of fisheries. I'm biased being from an area where poor spawning and thus disappearing pike fisheries is the norm, so if just one approach I'd rather it error toward keeping the pike waters out there in general, even if not helping the prolific waters.
OK I'll stop my ramblings now, I sure do appreciate now having such good muskie fisheries, as I lost most of my big pike waters it was like I lost my soul, and another big Esox filled the void!
I dont believe any two Pike lakes can be regulated the same. Like in Big Blue lake where you have 17 inch females spawning. Every year there are thousands of new ones . I still think the Musky would be a better choice in lakes like this but if they wont stock Muskies then they have to allow unlimited harvest to drive the numbers of pike down or they remain stunted. In Big Blue we are finally seeing some reaching that 24 to 25 inch size. I think there should be a 10 year plan on this lake to allow some of them to reach 30/35 inches. protecting them from say 25 to 30 inches would achieve this. Once there are some bigger ones in the system a higher size limit would be the right way to go. But at this time there no true alpha predators in this lake. Other species are rebounding now as the numbers of hammer handles has dropped and like I stated earlier we are seeing the average size pike starting to climb. They will control thier own numbers if we can grow that average size up to say 30 inches.
Every lake in my opinion needs the correct number of big predators to keep the rest in check. Joes low density Pike lakes in southern Michigan need the one fish per day or 36 inch limits. The drowned river mouths like Muskegon need serious size limit changes to get Pike back into the 40 inch range so they can controll sheepshead and carp numbers. Also adding some Muskies into those waters will help to control the explosian of trash fish that has been occuring up and down the coast here. Just look at the huge die off in Mona lake of Giant Gizzard shad. This lake should have the Alpha predators in it to keep those numbers down but Mona lakes Pike population is very low. Would muskies help there?? I think they would be the best answer to that problem.
So I think that we cant have a one size limit for all lakes. I like the fact that district Biologists can set regs on lakes in thier zones. What is needed now is the right choices made on each lake. So far on Big Blue lake the zero size limit is working as is the 5 per angler as the average size of these pike is rising. Now like I have stated there needs to be a next step to protect some of these and grow them to the next level establishing a base of Alpha predators. Mike
"Kingfisher" said:
Just look at the huge die off in Mona lake of Giant Gizzard shad. This lake should have the Alpha predators in it to keep those numbers down but Mona lakes Pike population is very low. Would muskies help there?? I think they would be the best answer to that problem.
I thought there are muskies in Mona??? Weren't they stocked?
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I need to defer to the better experienced pike fishermen here when it comes to the finer details of our pike fishery in Michigan. Having said this, I my vote is for a maximum size limit, as some have mentioned here already. I would REALLY like to see this. Maybe someday if Michigan adopts this general philosophy I'll be able to rid myself of my simplistic "pike suck" attitude.
Back in '88 there were 75,000 muskies stocked into Mona, but they were only fry that had barely hatched. It probably would be stretch if even one of those fish grew up. As far as I know those are the only non-tigers in Mona, but certainly not the only weird useless stocking done around the state… that is another topic indeed!!
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