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Well, thanks to a nice south chop on the lake today, I faired a lot better!!!. (Ya...I took another stress day:) ) Was out on the water around 9-1330h. Nailed around 8 pike all around 22-23 inches(for a second thought that the same one was following me around Aso caught a couple of nice smallies..no rock bass thank God !!
Anyway, around noon hour, pulled up a nice 22 inch walleye..man did she fight in the waves... within 15 minutes caught another 20 incher, and an 18. since I have not had some fresh for a while decided to keep the 4 lbder. Will be taking home tonight to take a picture of it(Darn left my camera at home) and will try to post it(guess i will have to subcome to Fishing pictures .com
All fish were caught on mid-lake humps with berkly gulp bait(first time I have used it.
I've fished Mississippi since the 80's and probably caught 1,000 plus pike there.
Of the 1000+, there have only been a few decent fish 4-5 pounds or better. I have never seen a 10 pounder there.
Why, do you suppose, are there so few quality pike? Are there just too many smaller fish so that there is too much competition for food? If so, should anglers be keeping the hammerhandles in the hope that fewer pike will mean better quality pike?
Very valid question CCB....you'd think sooner or later someone would bang a biggun...never head of it though....and ALOT of people fish in that lake....
I have been curious about this too. This was mentioned to me when I heard about the Pike & Pickerel tournament on Miss. and it got me thinking.
I have fished a good number of "pike lakes" in northeastern ontario that also showed this pattern. Lots of smallish pike (2-5 lbs), tons of fun to fish, but no one ever seems to catch a bigger one. One thing that I noticed about these lakes was that they were mostly shallow, with soft bottoms and a fair amount of weed cover. The pike share these waters mostly with perch and sometimes small dace or stickleback minnows.
I have also fished in other lakes that had pike that could easily grow over 10 pounds. These lakes tended to be deeper and have more rocky shores and bottoms. My theory is that the thing that makes the difference in these 'big pike' systems is the existance of good numbers of "soft finned" coarse fish that the pike can eat, in addition to the perch and or walleye that are in these lakes. Im talking about fish like Mooneye/Goldeye, whitefish, suckers, and larger chub and shiner minnows. Also present in a lot of these systems are freshwater drum, but not as prevelant.
One other thing I noticed about the Mississippi was that the rock bass and sunfish seem to be larger on average than in the Ottawa or Rideau systems. I would imagine that these sunfish must be a thorny meal to a little 2 pound pike who is trying to work his way up. Could it be a food issue ? Could pike on pike cannabalism be the only common way a pike in Mississippi will get a non-spiny meal ?
Maybe one of the musky guys would have some more insight. Very interesting topic.
I do agree with the forage issue....large soft bodied meals like mooneye and suckers will defintely raise the bar on the pike....just ask the muskies on the Ottawa...
To grow large pike you need deep water(over 50') and like Firefox mentioned, soft finned forage. Mesotrophic and eutrophic lakes are more fertile but lack the components to constitute a trophy gator fishery.
Slop.
If Winnipeg gets a hockey team, Toronto will want one too.....
That can't be a hard and fast rule. There is a small lake in the Kingston area (approx. 2 miles x 1 mile) that has one small area that is 20 feet deep. Average depth is less than 12 feet.
This lake has loads of pike in the 8-15 pound class, despite the fact there are no whitefish, mooneyes, etc. Just your basic perch and run of the mill baitfish.
There are other similar lakes, too, that regularly put out 10 pounders.
You don't catch 20-30 a day as can happen on Mississippi, though. But this time of year it's possible to catch a half dozen averaging about 10 pounds.
Well my pike come out of Lake Erie. I've fished the area pretty hard and I've caught a ton of pike. The biigest ones have always been in the 10-12lb range. I've never seen a bigger one. Now there's plenty of all differernt types of bait fish and they have plenty of water depth options. 2ft-200ft. Could it be as simple as genetics? There has to be some 20 pounders out there.
Yes I do agree that Mississippi is full of "hammer handles"...particularly around weed beds. Any larger ones I have caught (4-5 lbs) have been off drop offs a shoals..mind you I can only recall ever seeing 1 fish close to 8 pounds caught several years ago by someone icefishing. As for the panfish, yes they are good and healthy. I used to stay at McCulloughs and watch as american tourists would come off the lake with several hundred bluegills and rockies. over the past 8-10 years, I have started(like others) many slab crappies. They are all quite good tasting even though a little more work for cleaning!! Maybe if we all chipped in and ate more panfish, the game fish will do better. I recall many years ago (15-20?) when there was a panfish derby at the Carleton Place end where people were encouraged in catch and keep as many panfish as possible. Perhaps someone could consider doing the same thing? Just a thought, as the lake is full of the spiny beasts!!(I keep the bigguns)
Realised that if you delete picture from myfishingpics that the picture disappears here also!! Any other free sites to upload more free pictures?[img[/url][/img]
Reference the whole "big pike" thing, I admit I know little about individual lakes here, but I do know that truly big pike (+20lbs) don't hang out with the little ones. Also, while I'd bet that just about every "pike" lake has it's monsters, there just aren't as many of them.
They're generally loners and cruise the deep water and preying on adult fish (like walleye, jumbo perch, suckers and whitefish). Spines aren't much of a deterent to the big boys. They may come up in shoals, weedbeds to feed, but like I said they're not after minnows and 4in perch, they're more likely to be intereted in that stringer full of 16-18in walleye you've got dangling over the side of the boat.
Also, especially in lakes which receive fair pressure, these guys didn't get that big by being stupid and grabbing at every flashy muskie plug or spinner that came along. If you want to target these guys: forget the shoals and fish the open water near the shoal, use the biggest live bait you find (10in suckers), and be ready for some long slow days.
Remember, you don't catch extraordinary fish using ordinary methods.
I agree Saski. Keep in mind that these are bigger fish and they require themselves to use more energy to chase down a meal. Therefore their meal has to contain more substance, like saskie said...a 10IN sucker.
That being said, fish are not the most intellegent of creatures either. They've spent the better part of their life consuming small minnows and this is embedded in they minds as a food source. They will not pass on a minnow because of it's size. They will hit it.
Every year I hear countless stories of guys hooking into monster muskie on the Niagara River while they're drifting 2IN Shinners for steelehead.
Aso caught a couple of nice smallies..no rock bass thank God !!
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