It's probably bad etiquette to reply to such an old post but I cannot start new one yet so apologies in advance.
This is just my own personal, very unscientific experience, but I thought I would share. In general, like others, I would fish Wabamun for Pike because the action was plentiful and caught some decent fish. Truthfully I would only go out a couple times a year, and usually once in the fall. Most of the time I am just fishing a spoon or a storm swim bait.
I don't have an exact date, but maybe 5 years ago, the Pike fishing died off as described by others. I would catch maybe no fish or very very skinny Pike. Then, maybe 2 years ago I would just catch just 17" ish Walleye on those same spoons and swim baits.
This year I went out on Sept 16th, 2023. It felt slightly better. I caught a mixture of small walleye and small Pike. The Pike were not hammer handles, maybe a couple pounds max. Happily, those Pike did not seem skinny or sickly to me.
Most surprisingly I caught one amazing fish (I will try to upload picture in separate post) that I did not expect to find. It might have been close for 40" (sorry did not measure). I am sure it proves nothing about the fishery, but its nice to see some of these fish still exist.
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