Northern Idaho News

PUT THE BIG ONES BACK

Preserving Pike

By Bill Schneider, 1-24-08

They don't call it the water wolf for nothing. To some trout fanciers, pike, as in northern pike, is consummate four-letter word, just like wolf is to some ranchers and elk hunters. And for the same reason. Both species eat our prized native game species.

But there is a big difference. The wolf has a large constituency supporting its preservation, but when you go out and advocate preserving pike, especially here in the New West, here in Trout Country, you can feel mighty lonely.

Well, I guess I'll just have to learn to live with a little loneliness.

The wolf and the pike have another common trait, their undiscriminating appetite. Just as the wolf efficiently kills and eats anything that breathes, the pike efficiently kills and eats anything that swims, including sensitive species like the bull trout and westslope cutthroat.

	How to handle a big pike. Photo by Gene Colling.

Trout, suckers, ducklings, snakes, squirrels; it’s all just fuel to the water wolf. Hence the scorn the pike gets from Orvis aficionados and biologists charged with managing indigenous species. And hence the near-unlimited regulations for killing pike--no limits with any fishing method encouraged, even spearing--common in Montana and other western "trout states."

Before I cast any farther into these troubled waters, I should say, I like trout, too. I have a drift boat, a dozen expensive fly rods, and at least a million dollars invested in flies, and I spend no less than twenty days every year out on the river catching and carefully releasing trout, even those evasive, non-native species known as rainbow and brown trout.

But I also like pike. In fact, fly fishing for pike is about a good as fishing gets. Too bad I have to go to Canada to do it because we treat pike like a pestilence here in the New West.

Western Montana, for example, has some great pike habitat and pike fishing used to be decent, but now, it has deteriorated badly. I could go on a rant and blame the endangered species biologists and the wildlife agencies for the ridiculously liberal regulations, but not today. I blame pike anglers for the decline.

When I go pike fishing in western Montana, I'm usually on lakes that also have good trout fisheries, but guess what, most anglers I see are targeting pike, not trout. When they catch a trout, it's a disappointment.

The emphasis on preserving native species is not going to change, nor should it, so that leaves pike preservation in the hands of we pike anglers. We have to stop killing all the pike we catch, which, regrettably, is pretty much the norm, especially this time of year when ice fishing and spearing for pike is popular.

	How not to treat a big pike. Photo courtesy of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

I decided to write this column in January because pike are particularly vulnerable to bait fishing through the ice. Again, I have no problem with ice fishing for pike--I've done that, too--but I do have heartburn with the kill-every-pike-we-catch attitude.

I also have no problem eating a few pike. In fact, I think they rival walleye for table fare. But I only keep a few "eaters" in the 3- to 5-pound range. Taking some of these juveniles out of the population probably improves it, but taking out the big breeders can destroy a pike population. We must put the big pike back.

If we catch a trophy pike, we should practice CPR (Catch-Photograph-Release). If we want to hang our prize above the fireplace, take a few photos and measurements (length and girth) and take them to almost any taxidermist and buy a replica mount, which looks better and last longer than a real mount.

I recently edited a book called, Pro Tactics Northern Pike, which will be published this fall. Here's how pro pike angler and author Jack Penny calls it.

"I have witnessed the destruction of great pike water in just a few seasons," Penny writes. "It is a matter of genetics, plain and simple. A lake will have just so many big predators in it. And the higher up the food chain a species gets, the fewer of them there will be. In the waters that they live in, pike are at or very near the top. So naturally there are fewer of them. Once they are removed or killed, it takes quite awhile for the next contender to grow big enough to replace its older sister. If this happens continually, the upcoming year class won't be able to keep up. Pretty soon that year class will be getting whittled down too. It doesn't take many years of this before all there are is small fish in the system.

"Fish are like people," Penny continues. "When two humans of large stature mate, their offspring will have the potential to also grow large. It would be rare for two people five feet tall to produce offspring that would grow to be six feet tall. It is the same for pike. Big pike produce big pike. Small pike produce small pike."

In his book, Penny goes into great detail on how to photograph and release big pike with minimal mortality, such as using cradles instead of nets and not holding the fish vertically because it damages internal organs. Witness the two photosthe first from my recent trip to Oliver Lake and the second from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks website of a pike on a stringer that died before or after the photo was taken.

In Canada, wildlife agencies actively promote pike preservation. In many popular Canadian pike waters, anglers must use barbless hooks and can only keep one pike per day for a shore lunch. And guess what, pike fishing is better than ever with 40-inch-plus pike being fairly common.

This fantastic fishery keeps hundreds of fishing lodges afloat and provides thousands of outdoor jobs along the way. I know it will never be like this south of the border, but if we anglers take control and do what the agencies won't or can't do, we can have much better pike fishing here, too.

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