Touchwood and Seibert

[CMichaud]

Looking at the regs looks like they are 0/0 for Walleye and Pike this year? (less Siebert has tags/draw)

I was looking them up on the regs for a buddy and he was shocked.

Are these lakes not doing well?

[FlyTheory]

Seibert is great, they must be trying to preserve its trophy-lake status and prevent overfishing. I can’t speak about touchwood, I’ve never been.

[Pikebreath]

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.

[RavYak]

I haven't fished either enough for an opinion but I can tell you that netting data is the main thing bios are using to make decisions now.

The netting data for Siebert look like the typical recovered walleye lake. Used to be known as a great pike lake but numbers are down now replaced by significant numbers of walleye. Still a few big pike but almost no smaller pike in their data(that could be in part due to the netting procedure but it doesn't look good, the previous netting data looked similar too).

Touchwood shows low to average numbers for both pike and walleye. What I call average is nowhere near what fisheries wants to see in these lakes though.

[Penner]

Originally Posted by RavYak

I haven't fished either enough for an opinion but I can tell you that netting data is the main thing bios are using to make decisions now.

The netting data for Siebert look like the typical recovered walleye lake. Used to be known as a great pike lake but numbers are down now replaced by significant numbers of walleye. Still a few big pike but almost no smaller pike in their data(that could be in part due to the netting procedure but it doesn't look good, the previous netting data looked similar too).

Touchwood shows low to average numbers for both pike and walleye. What I call average is nowhere near what fisheries wants to see in these lakes though.

Has nothing to do with the Walleye. Unfortunately regulations have had keep 1 over 100cm for Pike for ever on Siebert which has essentially removed most of the big breeding hens out of the lake. It will take many years for it to recover.

[SNAPFisher]

Originally Posted by Penner

Has nothing to do with the Walleye. Unfortunately regulations have had keep 1 over 100cm for Pike for ever on Siebert which has essentially removed most of the big breeding hens out of the lake. It will take many years for it to recover.

I agree. I stopped fishing it about 5 years ago and even then the big ones were becoming a challenge to find.

[RavYak]

Originally Posted by Penner

Has nothing to do with the Walleye. Unfortunately regulations have had keep 1 over 100cm for Pike for ever on Siebert which has essentially removed most of the big breeding hens out of the lake. It will take many years for it to recover.

A pike will have already bred multiple times before it is 100 cm. Something else was at play as well.

The netting data for both 2010 and 2015 show populations of fish 65-100 cm(all breeders) and almost nothing smaller.

Either that netting data was missing the smaller pike population due to net placement, the fish aren't reproducing successfully, there is a poaching issue, something is eating all the young pike(walleye?) or the small fish aren't able to compete with walleye.

I am not sure what the ultimate reason is(likely some combination of the above) but I am betting the walleye are having an effect. We have seen a similar pike reduction on a large number of other lakes now including Wabamun, Pigeon, Ste. Anne, Gull, Buck, Sylvan etc. The small pike are in direct competition with the walleye and the large walleye populations clean out the forage base to the point where the pike no longer do well. All these lakes have seen reductions in pike numbers and failure to recover even with C&R regs.