New website in pending battle against voracious pike

[sparky1doug]

I read the blog and I too found it be confusing at best. I'm not sure who hes referring to "some anglers" and "advocates" those whom I'm involved with have never proposed "let nature take its course" as a viable option. You will have to check out Rich's blog to get the full impact. http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/outdoors ... comments=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Here is my response to Rich's blog.

Allow me to answer the question you have proposed in this blog: “Is selfishness a factor in Pend Oreille River northern pike debate?” NO! It is unfair to separate pike fisherman from salmon fisherman or pit them against each other. In fact they are for the most part one in the same and share grave concerns over migration into the Columbia River system. The “pro” pike advocate’s general position is perhaps misrepresented or misunderstood by the press. It is general consensus among anglers on the side of preservation of a pike fishery, that responsible management technics are the prime directive and goal. We have stressed the management goals on the Box Canyon should be “quality” rather than “quantity” for the pike. As the WDFW and the Kalispell Tribe have stated “it is impossible to completely remove the pike”, therefore the logical answer would be responsible management.
A pike fishery targeted at the fish 20” to 30” has always been our goal and I’m glad to see the WDFW has stated their preference to that on their “Invasive Species” web page. The thought being, leave the large pike as they eat the smaller ones and preserve a desirable “trophy fish” fishery. The idea of tournaments as a one way of controlling the pike population was first proposed by the advocates and is now supported by WDFW, again on their web site. So Rich, while we still have issues over gill netting and mass mechanical removal of the pike we are inching closer to compromise and agreement. I don’t believe that constitutes selfishness do you?

[Natebg1]

Hey Sparky,

Very interesting article and don't worry I didn't hesitate to make my thoughts known. It's too bad that people like that can go to such a level without first having a thorough understanding of the entire situation from both sides of the table. Well, I guess you can say that the Pike community is certainly not giving up or walking the other direction. I would have certainly thought by now that people would have learned to not come down on passionate anglers of any sort, but I guess they sometimes just don't get it. Guess I can't really say I am honestly that surprised, especially considering the backlashing that the Pike community has taken from many different levels. I am certainly glad to say I am on this side of the fence having to fend off the non supporters, because I can only imagine that the non supporters are having one heck of a time trying to figure out how to get the Pike supporters to calm down. Almost forgot to mention, Pike supporters don't calm down, we are like the Pike themselves, we are aggressive, tenacious, and full of energy and don't give up very easily! So all I can say is POWER TO THE PIKE!!! and to Salmon and many other fish that we all love to go after.

Nate

[Fish-N-Fool]

I too voiced my opinions of Mr. Landers comments, but I did it in a phone call to the editor of the paper. I don't think it will make them print a retraction but they were surprised by his rather harsh words. Until I called they didn't know anything about this story. I few more calls might help them change their mind about what Mr. Landers writes in his columns.

[AJ's Dad]

When I emailed with Rich Landers about the pike situation on the POR he replied very quickly. His reply was enough to tell me what he thought about the whole pike situation. I figured he would come out with something unfavorable to the pike fishermen but I didn't think he would be that offensive. I've added my 2 cents worth in a comment on his page. For what it's worth.

[yourdaddy]

I've been fishing for those Pike for 9 years. AJ's Dad was nowhere around, Yankin Jaw didn't even know where the PO River was. It used to be good fishing....10-12 lb fish regularly... some days a couple over 20lb. Those days are gone....LONG GONE!!!! They have been gone for at least 3 years. My eight year old son could teach you "wannabes" how to fish that river. Has Yankin Jaw even caught a 15lber? How about you AJs Dad? Probaly not...Why?....because you all missed it! Its over and the best thing for it might be the removal of a bunch of fish. If you read these posts there is only like 6 of you complaining. I live in PO county and have for 20 years....and us locals are sick of those fish. We could give a crap about the Pike. Power to the Largemouth!!! Can anyone even remember the glory days of the big Bucketmouths and actually going into a slough and fishing it all by yourself! I Can! Why do you Pike guys lie! Do you think catching fifteen 18" Pike that are about as big around as a German Sausage fun? "Turn off the lights, the partys OVER! BTW You Pikers should have some more respect for the WDFW. They provide you with some nice Tiger Musky opportunities. I say pull the plug on that wasteful program.

[AJ's Dad]

Yourdaddy, you've been a member of this website for about 2 weeks and the only comments you can manage are to come here and badmouth a few members and call us wannabe's? I have only been fishing the POR for about 5 years. I didn't even know the pike existed in the POR until then, or I would have been there in the "Glory Days". You my freind are right. To date my biggest fish is 11 1/2 pounds. Does that make me a poor fisherman that could take a lesson from your eight year old? I don't think so. My guess is that you don't really live in PO County. You're more than likely sitting on the west side of the state thinking of ways to get people all stirred up by making unruly comments and calling people names while using your new profile on this website. If you are for real, I can appreciate your input more if you do it constructively. As far as 15-18" pike goes. The sizes are not that bad at this point. Most days I manage from 10 to 20 fish and most are over 24". Yes, I do hope to catch those bigger fish. Do I think there are any left in the POR? Yes. I have seen them. I haven't hooked that big mother yet but I have seen them and I will certainly not give up trying to figure out how to get them to bite. Maybe if your eight year old isn't too busy this spring, he or she could climb in the boat with me and teach me a thing or two. Have a nice day and Happy Fishing

[Fish-N-Fool]

I've been fishing for those Pike for 9 years. AJ's Dad was nowhere around, Yankin Jaw didn't even know where the PO River was. It used to be good fishing....10-12 lb fish regularly... some days a couple over 20lb. Those days are gone....LONG GONE!!!! They have been gone for at least 3 years. My eight year old son could teach you "wannabes" how to fish that river. Has Yankin Jaw even caught a 15lber? How about you AJs Dad? Probaly not...Why?....because you all missed it! Its over and the best thing for it might be the removal of a bunch of fish. If you read these posts there is only like 6 of you complaining. I live in PO county and have for 20 years....and us locals are sick of those fish. We could give a crap about the Pike. Power to the Largemouth!!! Can anyone even remember the glory days of the big Bucketmouths and actually going into a slough and fishing it all by yourself! I Can! Why do you Pike guys lie! Do you think catching fifteen 18" Pike that are about as big around as a German Sausage fun? "Turn off the lights, the partys OVER! BTW You Pikers should have some more respect for the WDFW. They provide you with some nice Tiger Musky opportunities. I say pull the plug on that wasteful program.

You must be suffering from delusions because I know for a fact that most all of your comments are just not true. Both of those gentlemen have caught more fish then you will ever see. I have been fishing the P.O. since I moved up here in 1998 and I haven't seen you on the water. Years ago it was a great LM bass fishery and it had some monster Smallies, but not a lot of them. I got the biggest Smallie of my life back in about 2001 from it, right at 7 pounds. Not only have I caught Pike over 20 lbs. In the last 2 years I have had numerous fish that were over 30 lbs. on, but failed to land them. I did land a fish that was about 15 last year. Plus I have seen fish in the river that would shatter the state record. I was out on the river just last Sunday and we boated 2 fish in the 9 lb. range and got some smaller fish as well but none were under 5 pounds, so if you can't catch the larger fish maybe you need to learn some new fishing skills. Point being there are plenty of big fish in the P.O. still, but there are more smaller fish then there used to be and I do think that a problem. The Large Mouth Bass is on the Decline and I have seen a direct connection from the decline of the L.M. Bass to the increase of the S.M. Bass. I believe the biggest threat to the fish in the river is the Small Mouth Bass not the Pike. The L.M. Bass is and always will be my #1 fish. I would never want to see a fishery without them here in the Inland North West and I would do anything to protect them from being wiped out if I knew what the cause was. But I think you take what the WDFW says as fact and it simply is not!!!! They have resulted to scare tactics and down right lies to persuade the general public into thinking the Pike is to blame for all the problems. In reality I don't think there is a big problem at all, Yes we need to reduce the # of smaller Pike in the river but in order to restore the L.M. bass we need to figure out a better way to control the S.M. Killing off Pike to try to restore the Trout fishery (As IN Bull trout) is a total waste of time and our tax dollars. The Bull trout is in decline because of the dams slowing the water and letting it get weeded up which all brings the water temps up above a level that the Bull Trout can flourish in, so unless they want to remove all the damson the P.O. the Bull trout will never make a come back no matter how many fish they kill and how many billions of dollars they throw at it!!
If they really just want to control the pike so they don't run the risk of them getting into the lower Columbia (which I don't think would hurt the Salmon /Steelhead runs at all anyway) then why not put all their efforts into removing the pike from the Boundary Dam res. and leave the Box canyon res. alone or better manage as a trophy Pike fishery that is is now but could be even better.
The real truth about this matter is it is more about the almighty dollar then saving any fish in particular. The tribe is only after their share of the 500 million dollars allocated for restoring Trout and Salmon runs. I had to laugh at the WDFW news release a while back where they actually said the the Pike were killing off the Native populations of fish like the L.M. Bass and Perch in the river. This is a bald faced lie and they know better. NO spiney ray fish of any kind is native to any part of Wash, Idaho, Ore, Mont, or Cali. So all Bass, Pike, Muskie, Sunfish, Perch, and Crappie are all a transplanted fish. AS a matter of fact many of the Trout species we have here are transplants as well. The other comment that made be chuckle was they comment they said about the Pike eating the Squawfish, (yes I said it). Here they pay fishermen to kill them down on the Columbia and yet they say they are trying to protect them up here. It's all double talk to keep sending the money to the powers that be. If the Pike are eating Squawfish (and I know they do as it's one of my favorite colors of baits for pike) I say great!! We need to control the population of them anyway. If the WDFW really wants to keep Pike out of the Columbia and they want to waste a ton of money (which they are so good at) why not put in an electric barrier like the did back east to keep the Asian Flying carp out of the Great Lakes. If they can do it there it should work here as well

[Amx]

Well, yourdaddy is in Spokane with a Qwest internet supplier, but we'll be keeping an eye on him if he wants to cause trouble.

IP : 71.215.15.152 Neighborhood
Host : 71-215-15-152.spkn.qwest.net
Country : United States

[Fish-N-Fool]

I live in PO county and have for 20 years.

Spokane is not in P.O county so somebody not tellin the truth here.

[Lucius]

I had a long response typed up and hit submit with regards to yourdaddy's comments and apparently I got logged out while I was typing my response. Once I logged back in everything I had typed was gone and I noticed other people address his comments and I decided to leave it at that....

[AJ's Dad]

Well, yourdaddy is in Spokane with a Qwest internet supplier, but we'll be keeping an eye on him if he wants to cause trouble.

IP : 71.215.15.152 Neighborhood
Host : 71-215-15-152.spkn.qwest.net
Country : United States

I wonder if yourdaddy writes for the Spokesman Review.

OK I was just kidding. I was sure he was a west sider. LOL

[Lucius]

Well, yourdaddy is in Spokane with a Qwest internet supplier, but we'll be keeping an eye on him if he wants to cause trouble.

IP : 71.215.15.152 Neighborhood
Host : 71-215-15-152.spkn.qwest.net
Country : United States

I wonder if yourdaddy writes for the Spokesman Review.

OK I was just kidding. I was sure he was a west sider. LOL

Or maybe they work for somebody else....

[Lucius]

You know what, the pike in Washington are like Tim Tebow.....they are both a lightning strike for topic discusson that always appear to draw attention.

[Melodie]

Wow, sometime I just amazed by the things that come out of peoples mouth (or keys). Yourdaddy is so wrong on so many different areas. The days of fishing for big Pike are not gone. And we have been saying it over and over again....manage the fishery! I'm pretty sure yourdaddy has no idea how long YJ guide service has been fishing the PO,nor does he know how big of fish are caught, so that statement is just ignorant. I also wonder how you can live in Spokane and PO for 20 years, sounds like more BS. Now, on to the largemouth..... The fishery managers from WDFW and Kalispel Indian Tribe built a fish hatchery in 1997 to attempt to increase the numbers of Largemouth Bass through annual supplementation even though the Largemouth Bass are not considered a native species to this water. The indices of the population structure from the 2004 survey gave no indication that largemouth bass supplementation efforts have to date increased the population within the reservoir. WDFW would like people to believe that pike have eaten their way in the largemouth bass fishery, this is unfounded and untrue. The Largemouth were declining before the Pike were in Box Canyon. So the "glory days" have been gone for along time and had nothging to do with the Pike. Sounds like it is time to move on.
I welcome intelligent conversation regarding the Pike, but my tolerence for ignorant, insulting comments is very short.

[Fish-N-Fool]

I welcome intelligent conversation regarding the Pike, but my tolerence for ignorant, insulting comments is very short.

You get em Mel!!!!!!! Sounds like she chewed him a new (_,_) LOL

[sparky1doug]

Yourdaddy, welcome to the hornets nest. Come prepared and informed or you might get stung. Nice first post, your popular already.

[YJ Guide Service]

Yourdaddy as far as having to catch a 15lber to justify ones place in the Pike community what does that have to do with anything? If someone hasnt caught a 50lb Salmon does that mean their not a good Salmon fisherman? Obviously you dont know any of these people on here since I have lived in this community up here and have fished the PO River since 1983. I do remember the glory days of catching big Largmouth Bass and big Pike. I also remember the days of catching big Browns as well and lots of them. Just because you dont like what people are saying doesnt give you the right to slander people who are passionate about a particular fish. No one said you had to enter this blog. The glory days may have been a few years ago as far as Pike, but nature goes through a cycle as it does with every fish. The reason there is not many big fish anymore is the amount of people killing the big fish and letting the small fish go. You must be a little upset that people are actually fishing the river now and the spots you fish. I know its a bad thing that people are coming to PO County and spending their money in Newport and surrounding towns(not). If you are concerned about the decline in LM Bass then maybe you should encourage WDFW to take a look at the large increase in SM Bass. I would rather catch a small Pike anyday then not to catch one at all up there.I think everyone feels the same, we need to decrease numbers and increase big fish is all. Kind of funny your comment about locals wanting them gone. I havent heard from alot of (locals) saying they dont like them just a handful such as your self. Most people that have business in PO County welcome the fishery with open arms and embrace the change in the river. No one here is bashing WDFW we just want them to manage the Pike so we can have the days of catching big fish again for all to enjoy. Whats wrong with that..

[Drumdog]

Listen gang...
If you post your comments back to a troller like yourdaddy, you have fallen into his trap.(in this forum I guess it would be taken the bait, hook, line and sinker)
I've seen many trollers like that on several forums. They come in, post an inflammatory message like that and then sit back and marvel at their accomplishment as member after member post their rebuttals. Suffice it to say that the more we talk about that post and poster, the more they like it.

[Amx]

Good point, maybe I'll ban him.

[Drumdog]

You know...now that I think about it, I somewhat agree with part of yourdaddy's post.
Since I have caught a larger pike than my brother (A.J's Dad) that means I am a better fisherman than he is!
Wow yourdaddy....THANKS !!