Northwest Fishing Reports

A northern pike was recently pulled out of lake Washington. To whomever is responsible, I can only say thanks for giving the Muckleshoot tribe more ammo to restrict fishing in the lake. It's bad enough that jackwagons are constantly trying to plant walleye in the Lake. I can't even begin to explain how disappointed I am in the anglers responsible for doing this.

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Bucket biologists cause a lot of harm. I worry that the things they do to TRY to stop this - typically intensive gill netting - will do even more harm.

I dont quite believe the arguments that pike do all that much damage to the salmonids though. There are tons of pike in Cour de Alene and other lakes and river areas that also host large populations of trout, bass and several species of salmon all at the same time.

It sure seems to me that, at least in the case of pike, a new balance gets established rather than a wipe out as is implied and often claimed.

The Pike have all but wiped out a number of Alaskan salmon runs. None of the huge ones but some of the smaller systems, they eat everything going by. I can't remember any names off the top of my head but I saw a show sponsored by one of the conservation clubs a couple years ago. Of course they were looking for money, might have been piggy backing on the Pebble Mine deal....

Bodofish wrote:The Pike have all but wiped out a number of Alaskan salmon runs. None of the huge ones but some of the smaller systems, they eat everything going by. I can't remember any names off the top of my head but I saw a show sponsored by one of the conservation clubs a couple years ago. Of course they were looking for money, might have been piggy backing on the Pebble Mine deal....

I can personally attest to the voracious appetite of Alaskan northern pike. Must have caught a hundred of them, maybe more, between ice out late May and end of August while stationed at Galena, AK in the early 90s. Day long fish frys and buckets of beer! My biggest, a 44" monster of 20+lbs, hangs on the wall as a reminder of the awesome fishing.

Bodofish wrote:The Pike have all but wiped out a number of Alaskan salmon runs. None of the huge ones but some of the smaller systems, they eat everything going by. I can't remember any names off the top of my head but I saw a show sponsored by one of the conservation clubs a couple years ago. Of course they were looking for money, might have been piggy backing on the Pebble Mine deal....

I can't speak on the amount that Pike destroy, however, I can confirm that Alaska is worried about Northern Pike harming the salmon runs and have plenty of plans in place to help the ecosystem.

As part of research done for fisheries techs in Port Angeles, they dye coho and chinook salmon that are ready to return to the ocean using an ultra-violet blue dye in their diet and water tank. They release these fish in streams from Neah Bay to Sequim and will locate tagged Dolly Varden in the streams and capture it to scan the fish's stomach to see how many the fish will attack. In the Hoko River, of 20 of the dyed fish they released in that area, 12 where found in the scan of the Dolly's stomach within 24 hours.

Some could argue that that dye could make them more prone for attack. But with 10 additional non-dyed fish in the stomach, this leads to believe that the dye doesn't influence the Dolly.

What I'm getting at is we need to get studies similar to this one in place so that salmon are back on track. I know this sounds insane but tag that fish and see where it can lead researchers. Find out about its traveling habits and where it is primarily feeding so we can eradicate any future attempts on invasive Pike.