|
|
Posts: 303
Location: Valentine, NE USA | Here's the deal:
I have a lake (about 50 surface acres) on my property with a max depth of about 8 feet. Not a lot of forage fish...some small bass, perch and a few bluegills here and there. Our Pike strain is good (all stocking came from a lake with a 12-15# average fish size).
Here's my problem...all of our fish are mostly 6 pounds and under, healthy but small. Very high population (every other cast). While extremely fun, I'd like to see some bigger fish.
I should also mention that I haven't caught any young hammer-handles for the last couple years...
Who has ideas on how to improve this fishery? All ideas are welcome.
Thanks,
Brian
SLM |
|
| |
|
Posts: 1137
Location: Holly, MI | Start eating them before they eat themselvs. Whittle down the population. Plant more forage. They will grow faster on fatty fish like trout but that might get expensive. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 1764
Location: Ogden, Ut | Brian,
I'm not sure I'd consider a pike lake w/ lots of fish up to 6#, but w/o hammer handles stunted in the classic sense. Perhaps it just needs more harvest to allow the 6 pounders to grow a bit more. How long has the lake been this way? Or more importantly, how long have pike been in there and what was it like b4 pike? They may just need more time to grow. A body of water is biologically capable of growing X pounds of fish; you can take them as tons of little ones, lots (but less) of medium-sized ones, or fewer big ones. There's really no way of turning that every other cast fishery into an every other cast for a trophy fishery unless it's operating at substantially below it's carrying capacity.
I'm assuming it's a private water...Have you talked to the local biologist about it? They may certainly have more knowledge about it than me and have perhaps seen similar waters. Personally, I'd love to have that 'problem'! 
Kent |
|
| |
|
Posts: 149
| It sounds like you need to thin the pike population to allow for growth.
Hold a fishing derby for underprivliged kids or a boy scout troup to help weed out some of the pike. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 32934
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | I agree, you need to thin the population or increase the forage or both. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 1137
Location: Holly, MI | Beauty idea twitcher. Have a fishing derby, you will be the biggest hero in town. Make sure they know that after the derby is over they can't be sneeking in and catching any more pike tho. |
|
| |
|
| Sounds like you have a couple good year classes in there. Your comment about not catching any young ones is probably due to canibalism. Average depth of 8 feet is not working for you to grow big pike and it doesn't sound like it is particularly fertile water either. On a water of 50 acres I would really think that bass would make a better top of the line predator than northern, particularly if the northern can reproduce as well as it sounds like they have. I would guess right now the bigger fish are keeping the small ones in check. If you thin it out too much you may just restart the cycle with a bunch of small fish surviving fingerling stage.
It sounds like a fish biologist problem to me. Did we understand correctly that this water had no pike and you stocked them in there? If so what was the purpose of stocking them when you did? |
|
| |
|
Posts: 303
Location: Valentine, NE USA | Thanks for the help guys.
To address a few questions...
The lake was intially a trout lake (20 years ago), then a perch/bass lake, and now has Northerns.
Why was it stocked with Northerns? A few years back, a few uncrupulous ice fishermen created a huge pile of fish one year. They are now persona non-grata! Got hooked on Northerns while living in Montana, so I thought we'd try it here. Neighbor worked for the State hatchery...you get the idea.
The lake was first stocked with Northern fingerlings about 7 years ago.
There are a few fish that push 10-12 pounds. But, not very many.
I know culling Pike is a widely used practice in Europe, but I'm not very familiar with it. Is there a "science" to it or is it as simple as just thumping every 4th fish over the head with a club?!? Any certain size fish that should get whacked? Divani, you still in school?
Thanks again,
Brian
Edited by Snowcrest 6 5/24/2004 11:42 PM
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 561
Location: Monee, Illinois | What we did at our lake, which is a little bigger than yours and deeper, is add 1000 fat head minnows per acre. This allows the lake to have a great forage with out a huge cost. The fat head minnows reproduce about every 14 days. They also control the mostiquote's since they live on there egg's. You can get them from any fish farm. Next we stocked more perch, yes more perch, we did this one year after the stocking of the fat head minnows. You can have as many pike as you want in that lake as long as there is enough food. Any channel cats? These also make great food for the pike. If you can get them to reproduce in your lake. If they dont reproduce then you will just end up with some HUGE CHANNEL CATS. Only stock about 5 per acre. My best man is a fish bio for the state of Illinois and this is what he had us do. One thing I would not do is start taking them out!!!!! You can lose a great fishery really fast. If you have 6 pound pike in the lake you have a great strain of pike running. They take time to grow. The last thing you can do is add a small pebble or gravel area about 50 square yards in a shallow area of the lake. This will allow that part of the water to heat up quicker in the spring and stay warmer in the fall. This will allow the fat head minnow and perch to spawn sooner in the season and give the little pike more forage during the key times of year. Remember the fat head spawn every 14 days once the water temp reach's a certain temp. The temp changes climate to climate and will keep spawning until that water dip's below the magic number. I hope this helps and good luck. Plus like some of the others have said. Large mouth bass will also do well, even with the pike. Stock some of them also, it doesnt matter how many as long as your have enought forage.
Thanks,
Pgaschulz |
|
| |
|
Posts: 1764
Location: Ogden, Ut | If they've only been in there 7 years, just give them some time; if there's potential you'll have bigger ones soon enough. If after 10 or so years, you see no change in the size structure of the population, then it's time to start tweaking w/ the harvest, forage intro, etc.
K. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 391
| hmmmmm! Just me but I would use the stunted pike for forage and stock muskies!
kly |
|
| |
|
Posts: 150
| I like the way you think KLY!!! I was thinking quickstrike rig+small pike = Big Musky |
|
| |
|
| I am from England and while there are some fisheries that cull pike, the more enlightened fisheries are beginning to realise that if you leave the population alone it will balence out to a good range of sizes given time. As soon as you start culling the pike you tend to get an explosion of the smaller fish as there are no big ones to eat the smaller ones.
One large lake I fish had a massive population of small pike for ages after the owner carried out a culling policy. They sort of realised their error and have stopped culling for about 5 years now and you can see the improvement in the average size of the pike each year. The numbers go down but the spread of weights improves.
I would imagine the pike in your lake would react similarly, but if you want to take a lot of pike to eat you may do enough to alter the balence? |
|
| |
|
| Your answer raised more questions about your pond. Reviewing this post I read your deepest water in the 50 acres is 8 feet(not the average)? And you had trout in it prior. The question that immediately comes to mind is what happened to the trout? Were they winterkill victims or summer kill victims or was the pond supporting them year round in comfort? Would need a pretty cold temp in there if that is true. What kind of fertility and weed growth is in the lake? If the lake doesn't winter kill you may actually have your optimum fishery and it is a northern pike fishery. If it is cool enough to support trout year around you may want to check and make sure you have a sucker population in there. If it grew trout it probably would do very well growing suckers. You might ask yourself the question(as one poster here often brings up)as to whether or not this fishery is broke or not? If it aint broke, don't break it, is what I think he says... |
|
| |
|
Posts: 303
Location: Valentine, NE USA | fsf-
yes, 8 ft is the deepest point (at this time...we're in a drought).
It is fed by several underground springs, scattered around the lake. That's how it supported year-round trout. Water temps are generally in the mid 50's to low 60's. No winter kill history. Trout were over-harvested (I believe...happened before I came).
We do not have any high-quality forage in the lake at this time, that is at the very top of my priority list.
Weed growth is mainly coon-tail, grasses, and cattail rushes.
I'd like to thank everyone, again, for all your help. I appreciate it.
Brian
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 829
Location: Maple Grove, MN | I used to know a little about Pike.
A lake can grow 20 lb pike with perch and cool enough water for the warm summer months. Its takes a real oily baitfish like cisco to get Northerns much over 20 lbs. Lakes with little more than sunfish, chubs and shiners rarely grow Northerns over 12 lbs.
It sounds to me like it will just take a few more years to let the bigger fish grow to the 15 to 20 lb weight range. Northerns don't grow as fast as Muskies and a 20 lb Northern, with a perch forage base, will usually be close to 15 years old.
Good luck. |
|
| |
