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Old 06-18-2018, 12:17 PM
deanstr8 deanstr8 is offline
 
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Default Fawcett Lake Pike

Hello fellow anglers,

I spent Saturday on Fawcett Lake and my fishing partner and I caught a mix of pike and walleye, although more pike than walleye. I have been fishing this lake for several years now, and never caught more pike, especially when targeting the walleye. My friend managed to land 3 pike in a 20 min span that were all between 10 and 15 pounds, by far the biggest pike I have ever seen come out of that lake. I will attaché some picks.

I am totally perplexed as to why this lake would go to zero retention for pike this year, with an obvious abundance of them. Can someone offer some insight into this? It just doesn't make sense..[ATTACH]tompike2.jpg[/ATTACH]
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File Type: jpg tompike.jpg (41.0 KB, 208 views)
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  #2  
Old 06-18-2018, 01:48 PM
chuck0039 chuck0039 is offline
 
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I spoke to the bio's this winter at the walleye/pike meetings this past winter. They told me that pike at Fawcett where going to zero retention for a few years then possibly on a tag system. They were concerned that with Walleye on a draw system that people are now targeting pike to keep once their walleye tags are filled.

They also mentioned something about their test nets for pike not being very good in Fawcett.


Nice job on the Pike Catches
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Last edited by chuck0039; 06-18-2018 at 01:57 PM.
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  #3  
Old 06-18-2018, 03:47 PM
cube cube is offline
 
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Originally Posted by deanstr8 View Post
Hello fellow anglers,

I spent Saturday on Fawcett Lake and my fishing partner and I caught a mix of pike and walleye, although more pike than walleye. I have been fishing this lake for several years now, and never caught more pike, especially when targeting the walleye. My friend managed to land 3 pike in a 20 min span that were all between 10 and 15 pounds, by far the biggest pike I have ever seen come out of that lake. I will attaché some picks.

I am totally perplexed as to why this lake would go to zero retention for pike this year, with an obvious abundance of them. Can someone offer some insight into this? It just doesn't make sense..[ATTACH]Attachment 146682[/ATTACH]
According to the FWIN data the pike numbers are not that high and more importantly there is "low and inconsistent recruitment" for pike in that lake. So basically there are no small pike in the lake to replace those harvested off.
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Old 06-18-2018, 07:32 PM
Bushleague Bushleague is offline
 
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According to the FWIN data the pike numbers are not that high and more importantly there is "low and inconsistent recruitment" for pike in that lake. So basically there are no small pike in the lake to replace those harvested off.
Yeah, they are saying that about a lot of lakes right now. Personally I think they need to contract their netting operations out to people who know what they are doing. As far as I understand it, they show up to a lake they may or may not be at all familiar with and net it for several days, then base their regulations on those findings.

I think most of the boats who fished the Walleye Classic this weekend would agree... even on a lake you are highly familiar with, the results can be pretty disappointing if you show up for the wrong couple of days. Obviously limited familiarity with a body of water would further complicate things.
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Last edited by Bushleague; 06-18-2018 at 07:58 PM.
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Old 06-18-2018, 07:49 PM
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Habfan Habfan is offline
 
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Yeah, they are saying that about a lot of lakes right now. Personally I think they need to contract their netting operations out to people who know what they are doing.
X2
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Old 06-19-2018, 08:47 AM
Barnes19 Barnes19 is offline
 
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I would be concerned if its unusual for the medium/large pike to be caught that often, there may be something missing in the food chain that is making these fish hungry.
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Old 06-19-2018, 07:10 PM
Bushleague Bushleague is offline
 
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I would be concerned if its unusual for the medium/large pike to be caught that often, there may be something missing in the food chain that is making these fish hungry.
Since the commercial fishery was shut down Ive steadily caught larger pike with more regularity in the Fawcet, Slave, Utikima area. According to the biologists, pike, especially large ones, were a common by-catch when netting whitefish. In this theory the do appear to be right, the amount of trophy pike Ive been catching has pretty much tripled in the three years since commercial fishing was shut down.

Another sound theory is that with the good string of high water years we have experienced in this area the pike spawn has been more successful than in the very dry years we had previously.
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Old 06-19-2018, 09:20 PM
marky_mark marky_mark is offline
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Originally Posted by Bushleague View Post
Since the commercial fishery was shut down Ive steadily caught larger pike with more regularity in the Fawcet, Slave, Utikima area. According to the biologists, pike, especially large ones, were a common by-catch when netting whitefish. In this theory the do appear to be right, the amount of trophy pike Ive been catching has pretty much tripled in the three years since commercial fishing was shut down.

Another sound theory is that with the good string of high water years we have experienced in this area the pike spawn has been more successful than in the very dry years we had previously.
Incorrect
Pike and walleye limits at the lakes in that area, with the exception of slave. All had a high limit for whitefish and a extremely small limit for walleye/pike.
Whichever limit what hit first closed the season
There weren’t very many pike or walleye in those nets
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Old 06-20-2018, 08:16 AM
cube cube is offline
 
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Originally Posted by Bushleague View Post
Yeah, they are saying that about a lot of lakes right now. Personally I think they need to contract their netting operations out to people who know what they are doing. As far as I understand it, they show up to a lake they may or may not be at all familiar with and net it for several days, then base their regulations on those findings.

I think most of the boats who fished the Walleye Classic this weekend would agree... even on a lake you are highly familiar with, the results can be pretty disappointing if you show up for the wrong couple of days. Obviously limited familiarity with a body of water would further complicate things.
It really has nothing to do with knowing the lake. For FWIN they purposely wait until the water temps drop and the fish then spread out all over. "When surface water temperature is between 15 and 10 degrees C". https://lnsbr.ni****ingu.ca/wp-conte...N-protocol.pdf The stupid anti language police keeps taking ****ing out of ni****ing

or go to https://dr6j45jk9xcmk.cloudfront.net...662/226868.pdf

They then randomly select the given area's to be netted by lake size and depths. The larger the lake the more nets. The deeper the lake = more deep sets. The shallower the lake = more shallow sets.

This way they don't make the mistake they did out on the east coast. Where they were still netting record numbers of cod even though the fishery was collapsing. Primarily because fish will always head to the preferred areas and those preferred areas will not stop producing fish until the entire stock is depleted.

My problem is not the netting or the methodology of the netting but rather the unrealistic interpretation chart that they have used for walleye. As far as I know the chart has never been validated. They say they came up with it by making their own mathematical model and then running with it. My major objection here is that no where do they say they went into remote borel lakes and netted them in the same way to get the results that they have in the chart. My other major objection is the fact they call this scientific. When a scientist makes a hypothesis and finds the data does not fit they modify the hypothesis and observe again BUT NOT OUR GUYS. They just keep running the same mathematical model for decades in lake after lake while watching pike, perch, etc fisheries collapse. Now they are trying to play catch up with the disaster they have created. But most astoundingly they still have not changed their chart for walleye numbers.

Personally I thank God that they have finally started to manage the Pike fishery as well and perhaps they might also start looking at perch. In my estimation some of the walleye need to be harvested off to leave a little room for recruitment and other species.

Last edited by cube; 06-20-2018 at 08:33 AM.
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Old 06-20-2018, 11:53 AM
dustinjoels dustinjoels is offline
 
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Originally Posted by cube View Post
It really has nothing to do with knowing the lake. For FWIN they purposely wait until the water temps drop and the fish then spread out all over. "When surface water temperature is between 15 and 10 degrees C". https://lnsbr.ni****ingu.ca/wp-conte...N-protocol.pdf The stupid anti language police keeps taking ****ing out of ni****ing

or go to https://dr6j45jk9xcmk.cloudfront.net...662/226868.pdf

They then randomly select the given area's to be netted by lake size and depths. The larger the lake the more nets. The deeper the lake = more deep sets. The shallower the lake = more shallow sets.

This way they don't make the mistake they did out on the east coast. Where they were still netting record numbers of cod even though the fishery was collapsing. Primarily because fish will always head to the preferred areas and those preferred areas will not stop producing fish until the entire stock is depleted.

My problem is not the netting or the methodology of the netting but rather the unrealistic interpretation chart that they have used for walleye. As far as I know the chart has never been validated. They say they came up with it by making their own mathematical model and then running with it. My major objection here is that no where do they say they went into remote borel lakes and netted them in the same way to get the results that they have in the chart. My other major objection is the fact they call this scientific. When a scientist makes a hypothesis and finds the data does not fit they modify the hypothesis and observe again BUT NOT OUR GUYS. They just keep running the same mathematical model for decades in lake after lake while watching pike, perch, etc fisheries collapse. Now they are trying to play catch up with the disaster they have created. But most astoundingly they still have not changed their chart for walleye numbers.

Personally I thank God that they have finally started to manage the Pike fishery as well and perhaps they might also start looking at perch. In my estimation some of the walleye need to be harvested off to leave a little room for recruitment and other species.
What sized nets do they use for the netting program. I’ve seen some results showing poor recruitment of small pike based on the lack of small pike in the nets, however, my guess would be that the small pike are sleek enough that they just swim through the holes. I’ve fished lakes where the netting data shows no small pike and poor recruitment, but in reality that ends up being 90% of what I caught.
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Old 06-20-2018, 01:16 PM
cube cube is offline
 
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Originally Posted by dustinjoels View Post
What sized nets do they use for the netting program. I’ve seen some results showing poor recruitment of small pike based on the lack of small pike in the nets, however, my guess would be that the small pike are sleek enough that they just swim through the holes. I’ve fished lakes where the netting data shows no small pike and poor recruitment, but in reality that ends up being 90% of what I caught.
The nets they use actually have multiple area's. Each area covers a certain size range. A few years ago they added another extra small section for tiny perch. This area even catches spot tailed shiners so perhaps the data your referring to was before the modification. But even the old nets would catch small pike just not really small pike.

I have added the Artist rendered picture from their website and you can see many different sizes. http://aep.alberta.ca/fish-wildlife/...g/default.aspx
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Old 06-20-2018, 01:35 PM
dustinjoels dustinjoels is offline
 
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Thanks for the info
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