Northern Pike fishing in some western Wa lakes

[Fishin'Daze]

Hey Everyone,

First of all I've lived here in western WA for more than 50 years and fished all of them. I'm an avid fisherman and appreciate all types of fishing but think we could improve our choices. Soooo.... here it goes.

Just returned from my annual SD, Minn fishing trip. Gotta say that Northern Pike fishing is ALOTTA fun. We usually catch quality Pike (10 - 20 lbs.) each day with numerous smaller Pike (3 - 5 lbs.). These fish put most fresh water fish to shame as far as fight and yes - taste. My brother has it down how to remove the "Y" bones and we like the taste better than Walleyes.

When I return from these trips I always end up wishing that we had Northern Pike fishing here in western WA. Yea I fish for the annual stocked planted Trout each year but 10 - 12 in. Trout don't put up much of a fight and really don't taste that good (just my opinion). I think for the most part their not a natural fish for most of our lakes.

Sooooooo.... I guess my thought and wish would be a few western WA lakes dedicated to Northern Pike fishing. Yea I know the thought is these fish will spread and every other fish (bass, perch, etc.) will be eaten and become non-existent. I really don't think this is true as the same lakes I fish in SD and Minn have great bass, walleye and perch fishing.

What are your thoughts? Please no bashing me as I do appreciate our fishery here in the NW. Just think if you experienced this type of fishing you might come home feeling the same way. If we had better fishing (fighters) like Northern Pike here in western WA it might relieve some of the frustration we all feel towards our river Salmon/Steelhead declining fishery.

Is there any western Wa lakes that have Northern Pike? Haven't heard of any.

Thanks for hearing me out and give it some thought.

[Jakefish]

I think Tiger Muskies are as close as you are going to get and that is as it should be. Other warm-water introductions have already had a negative impact on native fish populations and there is no way to stop the spread of these fish once you introduce them. It would be horribly ironic if you introduced pike to make up for the poor salmon fishing only to have them further deplete salmon populations. Many runs of salmon (not just sockeye) spend time in lakes in some part of their life cycle depending on the system they are in - especially coho. Unfortunately, these lakes have already become less than ideal habitat for juvenile salmon because of shoreline changes and non-native aquatic plants and fish. Adding northern pike would be a big step in the wrong direction.

[Larry3215]

I have mixed feelings on this.

I see your point jakefish, and I tend to agree to a point.....but....

Fishing in Wa has been getting progressively worse to the point where it now just plain sucks and its just getting worse every year. I dont want to get into the reasons - wdfw, tribes, commercial, environmental, yada, yada, etc etc. At this point, its pretty clear that things are not going to change for the better any time soon.

Its to the point now that if someone gets lucky and catches a single, barely legal size, keeper king in area 11 or 13 its a 5 start day!! Its time to celebrate and break out the champagne! We are down to counting individual fish to decide if an area stays open or closed. Some runs are considered to be doing ok if they get a few hundred fish!

Seriously? Thats good?

The argument that pike will decimate the native fish seems bogus to me. Like the OP said, pike are found in water with bass, perch, trout, walleye and other game fish in every other part of the world and they are ALL doing well.

Here is Wa, salmon and trout are favored over ALL other species - to the point they will kill off every living thing thing in a lake just so they can plant trout? The people in charge in Wa dont want a balance. They want salmon and trout over all others.

As a sport fisherman, I agree with the OP 100%. Trout suck. Especially compared to something like pike, but then I also much prefer bass and walleye to trout, yet WDFW is willing to kill everything to keep the trout and salmon going.

Yet, despite all their efforts, or maybe because of all those efforts, salmon fishing keeps getting worse and worse and trout fishing is mostly down to catching 9" planters in most areas where there used to be nice fish.

Im with the OP. Lets try something different that would be fun. Plant some pike and lets have at it.

[Bodofish]

There are places to fish for Pike now, well on the east side anyway. It is true they have the ability to really harm salmon runs when they live in the lakes where the salmon spawn. Especially reds and to a lesser extent pinks and chums. Alaska has been going after them pretty fiercely after they got bucket biologisted in a few lakes that host Sockeye runs. The problem has had quiet a bit of study.
If anyone is looking for a fast growing warmish water big fierce fish, there's always the good old Tigers and they're in a bunch of lakes. Have at 'em, they're sterile so after you catch them a few times, the State can start some new ones. Good to go!
Try the Pend Oriel River (sp) It's had a bunch of Pikes for quiet some time.

[Fordtuff]

You can't really keep and eat the tigers. The minimum legal size is too big. I feel like some people in Western Washington need to get out of this little corner of the country and see how it is in the rest of the country. In other areas the lakes are full of different species of fish. It seems to work out nicely to have a food chain in the lake instead of some kind of sterilized holding tank for trout to be drudged out of until it's empty each year. Stocked trout in these low land lakes taste like crap. Bass and other species have been here for a long time. If they were destroying the precious salmon and trout fisheries it would have happened a long time ago in my opinion. People would enjoy fishing for northerns and they taste good.

[Bodofish]

who said anything about eating them? Yuck.....

The fierce fight over Salmon is well founded, many of us used to make a very good living fishing for them, not so much anymore thanks to many sorted issues. The issue is not one is better than the other, it's one belongs here and the other doesn't.
It's kind of like letting a bunch of feral hogs loose up out of Concrete. fun to hunt but what sort of damage will the create.

[Fishin'Daze]

Hey guys,

Thanks for responding with some really good points and opinions. Of course I wouldn't want to harm Salmon runs but they aren't in every lake. I think - if tightly controlled - Pike fishing in some western WA lakes would give us more choices for quality fishing. Bodofish I understand and appreciate your concern over the salmon runs but let's face it the hatcheries pretty much control the Salmon now days. Of course I wouldn't want to see any harm done to native runs.

Like I said in my previous post I fish in SD and Minn every year for Pike, Walleyes, Perch, Smallmouth and Largemouth Bass, White Bass and once in awhile Carp. All of these fish seem to have healthy populations as we catch numerous fish each day. I catch more bass during these trips than I do all year in western WA with more quantity and quality.

As far as fishing in eastern WA it's a long trip and usually quite windy. It would be nice to make an hour or so drive here in western Wa for some Northern Pike.

But again I really do appreciate your response and opinions - it's how good ideas are created.

[Jake Dogfish]

There are so many bucket biologists that if Pike could survive in Western Washington they would already be here.
Bass are in every lake already...

[Larry3215]

There are so many bucket biologists that if Pike could survive in Western Washington they would already be here.
Bass are in every lake already...

They are in Lake Washington already for sure. Plus, tigers basically the same thing as pike and they survive just fine on this side of the mountains.

[Larry3215]

I think we can all agree that deliberately introducing an invasive species is not likely to ever be on the official agenda. No way will WDFW ever approve or actually do something like that.

However, maybe we could apply enough pressure for them to at least consider not killing an entire lake just to keep stocking trout. That seems so far beyond concervation that I cant believe they actually do it.

We could also lobby for a complete closing of ALL salmon fishing by everyone until the runs come back. Thats also a pipe dream, but we can hope....

[Amx]

I said 30 years ago that they needed to close ALL salmon fishing for at least 5 years, commercial and sport, so the fish can recover.

[Amx]

Now it's going to take at least 10 years closed to work.

[Bodofish]

As much as I wouldn't like it, Tom is spot on, they did it in CA in the 80's when the Sac went south. They have Kings running naturally again.

Big difference between Pike and Tigers. Tigers can be controlled, they're sterile, Pikes are not.

[Amx]

How long did Ca. close it down? And how long did it take for the salmon to recover?

[Fishin'Daze]

Wow....here we go again.

Why does most subjects eventually turn into "it's all about the Salmon"? Salmon fishing is only for a few months each year - and is quickly decreasing in numbers and length of seasons. Keep in mind that hatcheries control mostly the Salmon run and most of the harvest is in the ocean ( commercial fishing - Japan and others).

This was meant to be about other choices when fishing a few select western Wa lakes. NOOOO Tigers are not the same as a natural supportive Pike population. You don't have the numbers in size difference. A sterile fish isn't the same as a natural fish ie Broodstock vs natural Rainbows. You may want to argue this but I know better.

Soooooooooooooo....I guess we can be happy with a declining Salmon season and numbers, crowded rivers and small tasteless Trout in our lakes. Orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........We can start to think about other choices for more of a quality fishing here in our back yard.

I wrote this blog not to upset others but hopefully to start us thinking about other possibilities when fishing SOME of our lakes. If you have never fished a lake that has a good healthy population of natural Northern Pike then You don't know what your missing. Try it some time and your opinion may change. Also we need to get away from the same old thought that our lakes are doing fine. Maybe for small fish but quality fishing is mostly non-existent. I know this comes down to your opinion but the next time you fish a western WA lake think to yourself - did I really catch a fish that fought really hard? Maybe once in awhile a Largemouth bass but even that is declining. The idea that we don't want introduce non-natural fish into our lakes is already happening - Trout, Kokanee, and Tigers for example.

When you argue that we need to protect our Salmon run - yea I'm sure we can all agree on that. But that's only a small part of our fishery here in western WA. NO WAY would a few select lakes for Northern Pike fishing harm our Salmon runs.

Anyway great thoughts and opinions - but let's keep the "we need to protect the Salmon" speech out of it.

[Jake Dogfish]

Tigers are produced in a hatchery and planted in lakes to control other species.
There are always people moving here that want the fish from back home. Catfish is another. The lakes on the west side of the Mountains are not productive enough to produce the numbers of large fish that grow in the Eastern part of the State and other places.
The state does plant way to many trout. A lot of lakes could have very good Cutthroat fisheries like Lake Washington and Sammamish but they have to compete with planters dumped in every year.

[AJ's Dad]

There are so many bucket biologists that if Pike could survive in Western Washington they would already be here.
Bass are in every lake already...

I can guarantee you that pike would survive I many lakes on the west side. They are very a very hearty fish and can adapt to any body of water that has ample food supply. Don't think for a minute that they couldn't survive over there. However, also don't think for a minute that the state of Washington will EVER plant pike in any body of water. There are plenty of land locked lakes that could do great job of supporting a pike fishery, without endangering any salmon runs. Sprague Lake on the east side is a prime example. I attended WDFW meetings on the east side when they were preparing the Pike Genocide that occurred in the Pend Oreille River. At those meetings they told us that the state was in no way interested in managing a pike fishery anywhere in the state. One of their big concerns was that if pike were readily available, people would perform their acts of bucket biology and then the pike would be everywhere. Intentionally creating a pike fishery in the state of Washington will NEVER happen. As bad as I would love to see it happen, it won't. That's why I spend lots of money fishing in Idaho, that could be spent here in Washington.

[Amx]

Do you REALLY think they can manage a pike fishery in this state? They can't even do a proper job with salmon and steelhead, their bread and butter fisheries. Trout 'management' sucks, and warm water management is non existent for the most part.

[Jake Dogfish]

I guess we have different interpretations of "survive". I was not talking about dumping your aquarium in lake Washington and some fish will live for awhile type of survival.
By survive I meant establish a population. Like there are two species of bass, perch, catfish, crappie and many different sunfish in nearly every lake that's not high elevation throughout the state. These are all introduced species. They were not all planted by humans, birds and floods move fish as well.
Many lakes would probably be more productive being managed for 1 or 2 species, especially in Western Washington.
Instead we have the same "fish soup" all around.

Pike would not establish here, or they would be here. I though that was an obvious answer.

[Larry3215]

I guess we have different interpretations of "survive". I was not talking about dumping your aquarium in lake Washington and some fish will live for awhile type of survival.
By survive I meant establish a population. Like there are two species of bass, perch, catfish, crappie and many different sunfish in nearly every lake that's not high elevation throughout the state. These are all introduced species. They were not all planted by humans, birds and floods move fish as well.
Many lakes would probably be more productive being managed for 1 or 2 species, especially in Western Washington.
Instead we have the same "fish soup" all around.

Pike would not establish here, or they would be here. I though that was an obvious answer.

I dont see how you can say that. They are already in lake Wa, and from the reports I read, the population is growing. Plus its pretty obvious the musky survive just fine and grow quite well in all the lakes they have been planted in, so why wouldnt pike?