I know this will tick some people off but the reason the fishery has collapsed once again at Newell is because of the commercial netting. In order to grow a large, healthy population of pike you need a large volume of water made up of diverse depths & substrates (since pike use different depths & seek certain temps depending on season, spawning, & food they are after), which Newell has in abundance. The next thing on the list is massive abundance of soft finned, oily bait fish which Newell also has when the netters haven't ravaged it year after year.
I remember almost a decade ago the fishing for large, & medium sized pike was awesome! It wasn't unusual to catch 6-8 little guys, another 8-12 in the 6-12 lb range, & usually at least 2 or 3 @ 15lb+. Can't speak for everyone but we never kept more than 1 per trip, or just catch & release. There were huge schools of whitefish at that time, on a calm evening you might see 50-100 of them swirling the surface. Almost all the bigger pike we caught in the fall had 10"- 16"whitefish in their bellies or sticking out of their mouths, & still they'd hit crankbaits!!
Majorly reduce the top prey item from any trophy pike fishery & see what happens. I will support whatever regulations "they"deem as necessary to try & save the population in Newell or anywhere else for that matter; it just sucks that the average sport angler has to pay for the sins of the commercial fishery & the spineless & uninformed governments that allow it to continue.
|