just wondering?

[lunge]

when your guys catch pike what do you keep and what do you throw back? granted they are better to eat when there small but anyof you eating 30+"? not being critical or anything just wondering. what are your feeling on a trophy pike fishery? obviously a slot helps, but a 40" fish is so rare unless you goto ontairio or something. Ive been graced with a 36/37.5 and I feel fortunate to have caught them in inland water in mn, and wi. have anyof you caught large pike in the past few years or is your obsetvation of the fishery the same. im not trying to start a spearing debate, and everyone can keep what ever they want aslong as it is by the regs. to each his own i guess. do you think that the regs reflect the higher angling pressure, Im not a c+r nazi or anything, I just dont eat fish. I wish the pike fishers out ther would adopt some of the ethics that the muskie fisherman have taken on with the c+r,I think that since the majority have adopted this the fishery has become more healthy. what are your thoughts????

[Neighbor_guy]

Back in the day I used to look for 22-24" for a "keeper" pike. I primarily C&R now, but if I am keeping one for the pickle jar I still want 20-22".

It is EXTREAMLY rare that I keep any nowdays. Send 'em all back. Like you said, trophy pike are rare, let'em go, let'em grow.

[C. Ford]

Don't honestly know what to think of the slot idea. We have had a 30"-40" slot on Lake of the Woods for better than 10 years. Is the average size bigger I dont think so, it seems to me we are seeing more fish in the 25"-30" area than we did in the past. More pike yes but I also believe that it puts more harvest pressure on the fish over 40". I dont believe that a slot is the cure all everone thinks it is kinda changes the pressure structure in my opinion.Eatin size I like 25"-29" easier to pick bones, dont like cutting that part out. One other thing a slot wont do what almost total catch and release does in the muskie world there is almost no harvest in that so its really not comparable at all. Good discussion though.

[GBPackerNut]

I like them right near the 20 to 24" range, usually get a nice clean fillet of that, on a side note just fried up my first keepers of the year, mmm tasty.

[Dan L]

Anything over 24 inches goes back. I keep a few under 24 inches.

[Fred_Bear]

I agree with the 24" mark. I really like the 24"-36" protected slot on a lot of MN lakes, and anything over 36" will be released by most people anyway.

[thedeadsea]

Depends on the lake. If it is a lake that has the ability to grow very large pike I won't keep anything but "hammer handles". If it is a lake that receives very little pressure and we are fishing for dinner or the pickling jar pretty much anything we catch gets eaten.

Steve