Purely anecdotal,,,, We have fished Touchwood for a weekend in June for the past 15 or so years,, but our catch rate for pike has dropped off in Touchwood in recent years, certainly was getting harder to catch a legal pike in the last couple years. We used to get decent numbers of large pike (8 -15 lb with the odd one up to 20lb plus) prior to 2012.
Suspect the drop off may have been related to spawning failures in the dry years prior to 2010 ( spawning creeks were not always flowing fully). Since then, angling pressure may be just enough to keep the pike population from recovering fully to former levels.
|