New statewide Pike Regs

[B420]

I don't want to get sidetracked and turn this into a Mille Lacs thread but you can see what happens when slots are removed. 40% of the creel surveyed pike speared were over 30". Removing these large fish whether angling or spearing is not good for our lakes. That is why these bigger fish need protection.

"The first weekend after Thanksgiving, creel-checkers interviewed 48 parties on this end of the lake; 36 of them were spearing. Jensen said the vast majority of activity on the lake so far this winter has been spearing.

That weekend, creel results showed 27 speared northern pike, while anglers harvested only eight pike and released another 11 fish. Of the 27 that were speared, 11 were longer than 30 inches and several were over 40 inches. The biggest fish speared that weekend was 42 inches long.

The plan to remove more small pike doesn't seem to be working at this point. Jensen said that although some of the people interviewed passed on large pike, almost all of them are passing on those small fish, too."

[DTro]

Those fish over 36” is the thing that sticks out to me. I have no idea what the numbers are, but one thing NOBODY can argue with is increasing trend of catching and releasing those bigger fish by hook and line anglers. That creel is actually pretty interesting. 27 fish speared and 19 caught on hook and line (8 of which were harvested). That’s almost a 350% percent greater harvest rate by spearers. We can discuss mortality rates all day, and I admit that might close that 350% gap, but those numbers sure are interesting.

Whether they want to admit it or not, I bet the vast majority of the spearers that visited ML this year were after one of those fish bigger than 36”.

I don’t know what the ultimate answer is, but I DO know that stringers of 8lb walleyes and 5lb Bass were once a tradition too. Had that tradition continued, where would we be now?

[merkman]

"The first weekend after Thanksgiving, creel-checkers interviewed 48 parties on this end of the lake; 36 of them were spearing. Jensen said the vast majority of activity on the lake so far this winter has been spearing.

The weekend after Thanksgiving and the vast majority of activity on the lake so far this winter has been spearing.... what did you expect... wheelhouses and 1 ton truck traffic?

Since we have brought it to this level... how many darkhouse spearers were out there in July?

Please compare the total take for the entire fishing season of each method rather than cherry picking data.

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[merkman]

That creel is actually pretty interesting. 27 fish speared and 19 caught on hook and line (8 of which were harvested). That’s almost a 350% percent greater harvest rate by spearers. We can discuss mortality rates all day, and I admit that might close that 350% gap, but those numbers sure are interesting.

Or we can continue to compare people targeting northern pike in a spear shack having more success catching northern pike than those targeting other species.

And we can still be amazed when a walleye fisherman throws back a northern pike because they have no interest in catching northerns.

Mille lacs is a perfect example of a lake managed for all trophies not a being a balanced lake.

Slot limits, spearing bans for 20 plus years, the ball of wax.... and it still crashed.

The first season isn't even over yet and you guys are blaming the darkhouse spearers.

Just wait until after February and the lake is returned to the anglers...

if you thought you saw big hawgs being slaughtered by the darkhouse spearers just wait until the northerns return to the shallows to prepare for the spawn and they are met by the anglers.

Wonder how that creel data will be twisted around..

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[creepworm]

just wait until the northerns return to the shallows to prepare for the spawn and they are met by the anglers.

So you are saying that hook and line anglers are poachers?

[merkman]

just wait until the northerns return to the shallows to prepare for the spawn and they are met by the anglers.

[20lbSloughShark]

So merkman, what do you propose we should do to protect the pike? We cant stay with the current regs, the fish cant handle it. I want future generations to be able to enjoy good pike fishing. What we have right now is not good pike fishing except in very few (mostly Canadian border) parts of the state. So instead of turning this into a spearing vs angling debate, how about we actually talk about protecting the fish. What do the spear fisherman think would help?

[delcecchi]

[quote name='merkman

I have no idea how you would even come to that conclusion from what you quoted creepworm. ..

Here are the regs for Mille Lacs

Northern pike angling: Ten fish. One may be longer than 30 inches. Angling season closes March 29' date=' 2015.

Northern pike darkhouse spearing: Ten fish. One may be longer than 30 inches. Darkhouse spearing season closes February 22, 2015.

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[/quote']

Sad, very sad. And it won't help the walleye. I think it was a bone to the resort owners, personally.

What little sympathy I had for the "stop the natives" folks just evaporated.

[merkman]

So merkman, what do you propose we should do to protect the pike? We cant stay with the current regs, the fish cant handle it. I want future generations to be able to enjoy good pike fishing. What we have right now is not good pike fishing except in very few (mostly Canadian border) parts of the state. So instead of turning this into a spearing vs angling debate, how about we actually talk about protecting the fish. What do the spear fisherman think would help?

http://hotspotoutdoors.com/forum/ubbthre...egs#Post3330703

[delcecchi]

So, you don't have a proposal.

[live4chrome]

Yep they took one of te last great pike fisheries and ruined it.

[20lbSloughShark]

So basically Merkman just wants to leave it as it is now, and maybe get rid of slot limits. There has got to be some balance. I don't want to see the whole NE shut down, but some lakes need added protection. That is the beauty of slot limits. It only affects a few lakes with plenty of natural lakes between. I'm not even hoping for the trophy "utopia" that merkman mentions. I want to see healthy lakes. If I want a true trophy, I'll go far into canada.

[merkman]

So basically Merkman just wants to leave it as it is now, and maybe get rid of slot limits... yada yada yada....

If you say so... it must be true...

What part of fix the existing rules for slot limit lakes don't you understand?

Unless of course the entire reason for not wanting to fix them is that they work as designed to keep darkhouse spearers off these lakes... and numerous MnDNR documents show they are very effective at that.

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[creepworm]

What part of fix the existing rules for slot limit lakes don't you understand?

I do not understand any part of it.

[delcecchi]

Yep, what is the fix you would propose, merkman?

No slots, you have complained about them for years. So what is your solution?

[live4chrome]

how about a tag system (GAFF) like alaskas charter boats have for halibut?

On a chartered boat in AK you are allowed 2 halibut. One must be under 29" and the other may be any size.If an angler keeps a fish over 29", and then catches another over they may buy a tag from the state for something like 100$ that allows them to harvest the second fish over 29" in place of the fish under 29" GAFF tag numbers are limited in #. the tags are really designed for the angler who keeps their 30# eater, then catches the 300lb barn door derby winner fish.

I could see something like this working in Minnesota. Perhaps a 20$ tag for a fish over 30", and limit to 1 or 2 tags a season?

Thus your Oops factor you get when spearing goes away, and if an angler really has to kill a big fish for some reason they can take one legally per year. The fish must be immediately tagged upon reducing it to your possession.

I feel a good percent of anglers wouldn't buy one, yet the option is still there. The key to making this work is making the tags expensive enough. They won't work if they are only 3$

Its not as good as the proposed regs, but might appease the spearing crew and the Must kill all pike crew as well.

[Spike76]

I feel slots are wrong. Look back at the first slots on 125 lakes, they were called experimental, just to have more large pike. If a lake needs more large pike for a good reason, close it completely. I would guess more large pike die from catch and release than are speared in a year. I hate the slots on Lower Mission, more than anyone. These are only on this lake to get larger pike, and not because the lake needs them. I don't know about other lakes, but if they are only there to get larger pike it is wrong. Lay off of merkman, everyone I know agrees with him. I would bet merkman could set regulations that would be better for all equally.

[tolle141]

The reason why they would zone instead of treating every lake differently is because it would take all of their resources to enforce it. By zoning, they can get 80% of the value that they'd get if they treated every lake differently, but at a fraction of the cost.

The effort that went into the studies to back this up is immense. There's a lot of good data to back these regulations up.

These proposed regulations will be diluted, but I hope the general regulations they're proposing go through. I saw more pike over 30 inches this year than I have in the last 10 combined.

Great work MN DNR!

[delcecchi]

I feel slots are wrong. Look back at the first slots on 125 lakes, they were called experimental, just to have more large pike. If a lake needs more large pike for a good reason, close it completely. I would guess more large pike die from catch and release than are speared in a year. I hate the slots on Lower Mission, more than anyone. These are only on this lake to get larger pike, and not because the lake needs them. I don't know about other lakes, but if they are only there to get larger pike it is wrong. Lay off of merkman, everyone I know agrees with him. I would bet merkman could set regulations that would be better for all equally.

So you don't care if there are big pike in your lake, that what you are telling us?

[derbier122x]

I like that tag option chrome. Last weekend I kept a 31 inch pike while fishing due to the way it was hooked and how stressed it was after I fought it. I tried to send it back down hoping for the best, but after a few minutes it just wouldn't kick off. Had I caught a fish i considered a wall hanger right after, that would've [PoorWordUsage] me off.

[live4chrome]

Biology tell us that big pike are a keystone species in any lake that has them. To take them out causes the whole ecosystem to shift towards more abundant, stunted fish of every species. Go take a aquatic ecology or fisheries class, this is taught as cold hard fact, not theory or opinion.They have the studies to show it.

Some people just fall into the meat hunter category, and if they have to throw anything back they get upset because it looks better to them in their freezer than in the lake doing what it is supposed to be doing. Luckily this train of thought is dying off.No matter what you show them or what evidence you give they won't change. We need to write our regulations using biological data that shows what is best for the lakes, NOT for the fisher people. Fishery health should come first, Human harvest and use should come second. In a mater of a few decades we have all but destroyed our Minnesota fisheries, and the ones we haven't have been knocked down to a fraction of what they once were.

[Nick Kuhn]

I feel slots are wrong. Look back at the first slots on 125 lakes, they were called experimental, just to have more large pike. If a lake needs more large pike for a good reason, close it completely.

You are on to something, but beyond the text I quoted is where you start to go astray.

The problem with taking a lake of hammerhandles and slapping a slot limit on it is that it will only partially work. The idea is to protect the large pike. The problem is they are implemented on lakes that don't have large pike to protect.

Example, a 24"-36" is implemented on a lake. You fish that lake, and catch 15 small pike. The largest pike you catch is 22". As an angler, you keep that 22" pike as it is legal to do so and you are being encouraged to harvest small pike.

Still following? Okay, here's the problem with that. You just caught a statistically relevant sample of the northern pike population. What you caught represents what is in the lake for the most part. Then, by keeping the "undersized" 22" pike, you actually hurt the lake. Why? Because in that body of water, a 22" pike is a large pike. You kept the large pike the regulations aim to protect.

Are there certainly some pike over 24"? Yes, but not a significant enough part of the population. One thing fisheries data never seems to accurately account for is the seemingly infinite population of pike that are between 0 and 12" long. Anglers don't catch them, DNR gear doesn't sample them well, but there are tons of them year after year to replace the 20" pike we harvest.

So in order to fix the problem, you essentially do have to close the lake to harvest for some period of time. This period of time needs to be long enough to get a sizeable portion of the population into the protected size range, and then you can drop the no harvest in favor of the slot limit.

The problem is the ideology is a bit inaccurate. It encourages harvest of small pike and release of large pike relative to the potential maximum size of pike. It doesn't really work when that results in harvest of large pike relative to the existing population within a lake. A slot would eventually work there, but it would take much longer to arrive there than most people are willing to wait.

[merkman]

The reason why they would zone instead of treating every lake differently is because it would take all of their resources to enforce it. By zoning, they can get 80% of the value that they'd get if they treated every lake differently, but at a fraction of the cost.

And it has the added benefit of pushing darkhouse spearers off ALL the public lakes in Minnesota, without those messy outright darkhouse spearing bans.

Don't modify the rules to include darkhouse spearing. .. just claim that they chose to stop darkhouse spearing on their own because they didn't like the anglercentric slot rules that were made.

Pretty convenient for those anti spearing anti-harvest individuals.

Once the darkhouse spearers are gone they will move on to the next group of "evil pike killers".

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[delcecchi]

Still haven't heard what you would propose as a regulation to enhance the numbers of large pike in our lakes.

[live4chrome]

To let our fisheries completely fall apart for the benefit (is it even a benefit if the fisheries are ruined?) for a very small handful of spearers who target pike for only 3 months out of the season seems pretty spearercentric to me.

It seems to me to let the ecosystem of a lake and the panfish structure go down the drain for the benefit of not even 10% of the ice fishermen seems pretty spearercentric to me as well, especially when they can still practice their sport but just have to be more selective on what they can throw on. We can't continue to harvest the biggest pike in the lakes or we will continue to see the downward spiral in not only pike size structure but the overall health of the lakes

It's important to note that they are allowing more harvest in some zones, so they are not vilifying pike killers out like you make them.