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Posts: 639
Location: Hudson, WI | Is it just me or is there a million hammer handles in almost every lake in NW Wisconsin now? Especially in the Hayward area. Alot of the lakes up there never had pike in them at all, and now you can't shake them off. And I'm not talking "pike." 19" snot rockets all over the place.
Fished Tiger Cat 5 years ago, caught a ton of pike and two little tigers.
Sand has a lot of them and it's increased every time I've fished it.
Fished LCO 3 years ago in July and caught them on everything we threw.
Now I just got back from a few days on Lost Land and the same thing. Not to mention in 20 years of fishing the St. Croix, I had caught one pike during the first 16 years. The last four, I average 10 or so a year. Cedar, Wapo and Bone are full of them too.
Anyone else notice this? |
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Posts: 620
Location: Seymour, WI | Filet them. |
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| As some guys from the south would tell you, count your blessings. If you guys would let them alone in the winter, those hammer handles will grow into nice sized gamefish. A 32" fish makes a nice presentation on the table. Quite a bit of fun catching too. |
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Posts: 8785
| Way too many pike. As far as I am concerned, that's a good thing. They make great table fare, and it's good for a few laughs to throw on a #5 Mepps for an hour and see who can catch the most/biggest. I'll admit it gets annoying after the first 2 or three if you're really hell bent on catching a musky today, but it's still more fun than catching nothing at all. |
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Posts: 4343
Location: Smith Creek | The Swan - 7/17/2013 2:24 PM
As some guys from the south would tell you, count your blessings. If you guys would let them alone in the winter, those hammer handles will grow into nice sized gamefish. A 32" fish makes a nice presentation on the table. Quite a bit of fun catching too.
Unfortunately that is not the case on many lakes. Some of the lakes they do grow, many lakes 20-22" is max size. Difficult choice on some of those Hayward lakes, Round, LCO, Nammy, they do grow big. |
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Posts: 546
Location: MN | Why is it that many lake have that 22" maximum length? Forage, density? |
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Posts: 639
Location: Hudson, WI | I can imagine that a deep, clear lake like LCO could grow some giants, but we never found any. I'll eat a 30 incher all day, but we never came close to that out there. Dinks left and right. It would help the size structure if people started clubbing them, I just can't bring myself to do it  |
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Location: Sawyer County, WI | I got a 32 incher casting for musky on Lost Land the other night. Sure, there are plenty of snot rockets out there (and they seem to love musky sized lures) but there are some nice ones too. It's a shame that I only seem to hook into them when targeting another species... |
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Posts: 291
Location: Madison, WI | They have shown up on Spider now too. We moved their in 1984 and I hadn't seen a pike since just a few years ago. Now the place is starting to crawl with hammer handles, in literally 2-3 years. I know the lake association stocks walleyes in the lake every other year and there was never an issue and I am guessing that there was some serious mixing going on with the hatchery where the walleyes came from because there is one really strong year class of pike now in the lake. Hopefully they regulate a bit and don't start to take over, not like they don't do it on every single lake there are pike in.
It will be interesting to see how the system reacts and adapts to the introduction. Nothing you can do about it now, they are their to stay. At least it sometimes keep's your s#&t quick when your fishing. |
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| Those fish IMO are the best eating you can get. If people would start keeping the Hammer handles to eat and letting the nicer ones go aka selective harvest, you might be suprised as to what good will come. Letting a 18-22 incher go and keeping a 30 incher is just poor judgement. For one the larger pike are no where near as tasty. The smaller pike 24" and under eat anything and everything and feed mulptiple times a day. If they thrive, they can demolish a lake and wipe out almost all other species.
The best thing one can do is keep the small ones everytime out. I would put a northern up against a walleye any day for eating. Learn how to remove the -Y- bones if prefered and I would bet no one here could tell the difference, or would think that the northern is better tasting. |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Agreed. |
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Posts: 2687
Location: Hayward, WI | There are quite a few. I don't catch a lot when musky fishing though. I think I tend to be a little deeper than most of the small pike live. Catch my share while walleye fishing though. Most of them I catch on LCO while fishing for 'eyes seem to be in the 24-29 inch range, though I've heard a LOT of tiny ones live in the shallow weedy bays.
I feel like I'm doing my part by keeping a fair number of them in the 22-28 inch range. The Y bones are easy to fillet out, and the meat is very good. Much better than a lot who have not tried it would believe. I'd rather fillet a 26" northern in 3 minutes than spend 20 cleaning 15 crappies to get the same amount of meat.
Tucker
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Posts: 75
| I got two 28's a couple of weeks ago on Lost Land and they were absolutely worth fileting. A warden once told me that those are a "guilt-free harvest." |
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Posts: 639
Location: Hudson, WI | They are pretty #*^@ good to eat, that's true. |
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Posts: 365
| BONK'em on the head and feed the Eagles ------- jimjimjim |
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Posts: 5
| These little guys stuff themselves with baby Muskie, too. Not good news to have them in the same water. |
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Posts: 267
| Howdy,
From everything I have read, 24 inches and above seems to be the sweet spot where they start to engage in canibalism and self regulate the population. Unfortunately this is also the size a lot of people think is the minimum for good filleting, thus maintaining a vicious cycle.
Take care,
Ruddiger |
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Posts: 8785
| Ruddiger - 7/19/2013 8:50 AM
Howdy,
From everything I have read, 24 inches and above seems to be the sweet spot where they start to engage in canibalism and self regulate the population. Unfortunately this is also the size a lot of people think is the minimum for good filleting, thus maintaining a vicious cycle.
Take care,
Ruddiger
That may be true. But I doubt a 24" pike will discriminate between a YOY Pike or a YOY musky.
I also think we can eat more of them than they can eat of each other. |
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Posts: 1168
| I'll get skewered by some on this but I'd rather eat pike than walleye any day.
Years ago on the "home" lake a friend ran a "Snake Hunt." This was back when the limit was 25 fish per day. His lawn would be covered in pike and when the level of alcohol surpassed a certain point they would be fired back out into the lake from a potato gun. Those things flew like little slimy missiles. It ended when he realized that it probably wasn't a good idea to load up all of the discarded pike into trash bags and haul them to a dumpster. Having in the neighborhood of 500 pike in your possession would be one heck of a possession limit violation. |
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Posts: 410
Location: Wakefield, MI | Guest - 7/18/2013 11:01 AM
Those fish IMO are the best eating you can get. If people would start keeping the Hammer handles to eat and letting the nicer ones go aka selective harvest, you might be suprised as to what good will come. Letting a 18-22 incher go and keeping a 30 incher is just poor judgement. For one the larger pike are no where near as tasty. The smaller pike 24" and under eat anything and everything and feed mulptiple times a day. If they thrive, they can demolish a lake and wipe out almost all other species.
The best thing one can do is keep the small ones everytime out. I would put a northern up against a walleye any day for eating. Learn how to remove the -Y- bones if prefered and I would bet no one here could tell the difference, or would think that the northern is better tasting.
I've been practicing on the Y bones, getting better now. Pike are one of my favorite eating fish.
Odd thing is, we used to have a lot of hammer handles here, now we hardly ever get them. Must have migrated south
Edited by milje 7/19/2013 6:31 PM
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Posts: 130
Location: Duluth, MN | jimjimjim - 7/18/2013 12:17 PM
BONK'em on the head and feed the Eagles ------- jimjimjim
Way to show your ethics |
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Posts: 241
| I agree.
jimjimjim and Ulbian - not cool. More material for the anti-fishing group. They would love to see this post.
Why not treat all gamefish with respect? Why kill for the sake of killing? Take them to a foodbank, find someone that likes to eat them...
Very unethical. You get no respect from me.
Backdraft |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | jimjimjim - 7/18/2013 12:17 PM
BONK'em on the head and feed the Eagles ------- jimjimjim
Sure, go ahead, and be prepared to pay a BIG fine for wanton waste if you get caught.
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Posts: 46
| The pike in most of Wisconsin are a perfect example of selective harvest gone wrong. We've created this situation by selecting against fast growing large pike through harvesting all the large ones. Microevolution at its finest. I'd like to see a slot protecting larger fish and maybe the introduction of pike with better genetics to get things back to the way they were.
Edited by NPike_Guy 7/22/2013 7:42 AM
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Posts: 2753
Location: Mauston, Wisconsin | No need for wanton waste of those hammer handles, if you really feel the population is out of control and the fish is legal length. Protecting the larger fish, both northern pike and muskies would also be a positive step forward.
This is a great pickled fish recipe from a departed friend (Ed Barrett) RIP Ed! Every time I fish the Lemonweir River I think about Ed and all the good times we had, that's were his ashes were placed.
This makes about 1 gallon. I use the gallon glass jars, e.g., the kind pickled pig's feet, turkey gizzard's, pickled egg's, etc. used to come in. I've kept mine tightly sealed for over a year, in the fridge of course. It still tasted like it was just made. Follow the instructions- its a no fail recipe.
Have fun!
Al
Edited by ESOX Maniac 7/22/2013 7:56 AM
(Ed's Pickled Pike-FB.jpg)
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 Ed's Pickled Pike-FB.jpg (45KB - 194 downloads)
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Location: 31 | Guest - 7/18/2013 11:01 AM Those fish IMO are the best eating you can get. If people would start keeping the Hammer handles to eat and letting the nicer ones go aka selective harvest, you might be suprised as to what good will come. Letting a 18-22 incher go and keeping a 30 incher is just poor judgement. For one the larger pike are no where near as tasty. The smaller pike 24" and under eat anything and everything and feed mulptiple times a day. If they thrive, they can demolish a lake and wipe out almost all other species. The best thing one can do is keep the small ones everytime out. I would put a northern up against a walleye any day for eating. Learn how to remove the -Y- bones if prefered and I would bet no one here could tell the difference, or would think that the northern is better tasting. x3!!! I would put a northern up against a walleye any day for eating too. I think the problem most people have with pike is the slime and Y bones... just means more for my fish fry. |
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Posts: 1916
Location: Greenfield, WI | Pickling of small hammer handles is a great option. For the most part the bones will disappear in the pickling process.
Another option is keeping Weber Fish, which is a pike that after cutting off the head and tail fits easily onto a Weber Grill.
Fill the chest cavity with lemon slices, wrap the fish in bacon, and wrap everything in foil. Cook for somewhere between 26 and 28 minutes over a medium heat. The meat should fall off. The bacon helps to keep the fish from burning, and offer additional flavoring.
My son and I caught over 30 hammer handles over the weekend while river fishing for muskies. We caught three nice Weber Fish!
Edited by Steve Van Lieshout 7/22/2013 9:46 AM
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Posts: 1030
Location: APPLETON, WI | Guest - 7/18/2013 11:01 AM Those fish IMO are the best eating you can get. If people would start keeping the Hammer handles to eat and letting the nicer ones go aka selective harvest, you might be suprised as to what good will come. Letting a 18-22 incher go and keeping a 30 incher is just poor judgement. For one the larger pike are no where near as tasty. The smaller pike 24" and under eat anything and everything and feed mulptiple times a day. If they thrive, they can demolish a lake and wipe out almost all other species. The best thing one can do is keep the small ones everytime out. I would put a northern up against a walleye any day for eating. Learn how to remove the -Y- bones if prefered and I would bet no one here could tell the difference, or would think that the northern is better tasting. True statement. I've gotten bettering at fileting Pike over the years, although, I'm still no expert by a long shot. Way better texture/filet than any Walleye I've ever eaten, IMO.
I do exactly as GUEST indicates here and keep the small ones that are caught. It's the only way you're going to help cull out the common sized hammer handles.
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Posts: 1168
| backdraft - 7/19/2013 9:39 PM
I agree.
jimjimjim and Ulbian - not cool. More material for the anti-fishing group. They would love to see this post.
Why not treat all gamefish with respect? Why kill for the sake of killing? Take them to a foodbank, find someone that likes to eat them...
Very unethical. You get no respect from me.
Backdraft
Reading comprehension escaped you there chief.
Was there mention in my post about the snake hunt that it continues? Nope. Did I say that I was directly involved in this event? Nope....I didn't meet the guy who ran it until four or five years after it no longer took place. Did I say that it no longer is occurring? Yep. Swings and misses there so your lack of respect for yours truly is a bit off base.
I'll add that this event took place on a body of water that was notorious for an over abundance of undersized pike....and that this snake hunt event was supported by the WDNR. In the 10 or so years that this tournament took place the largest pike that was brought in was just shy of 20 inches. That would've been one pile of pickled northern for a food bank to deal with.
I agree that other gamefish need to be treated with respect and have been a proponent for more protection on pike in select local water. I respect your passion in that regard but your reading comprehension leaves little to be desired.
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Posts: 22
| Lots of little pike on my local waters also. I agree that fish over 26-28 inches for the most part should be released and if your lake is loaded with 18 inchers than you should eat them. Pickled , fried, broiled , baked, grilled. Learn how to cut out the Y bones and fill your freezer. The bigger pike get the more they prefer cooler water temps. Fish the shallow weeds and catch dinkers all day . In the warm water temps of summer go deep and you will see less dinkers and increase your chances at those elusive monsters. Help the muskies and kill some little pike. |
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