Went out yesterday with a group of youth, we did pretty decent, no worse than previous years, I think the pike fishery there is at least close to what it's been in the past, not quite as good but at least close. I have mixed feelings about the pike closure here, the vast majority of pike I catch are C&R, I keep perhaps a couple a year and not all at newell. I suspect there will be a few unintended consequences of this closure, I think it will move a number of fishermen to the surrounding lakes and those fisheries will see more pressure from people who like to keep fish. I think this could be a bit of an issue because of all the lakes in the area Newell is the biggest and probably the best positioned to sustain some keeping (with IMHO should be a slot limit). On the flip side since most of my fishing is C&R anyways it should make a good lake even better
. First lake in southern AB where the Pike are given the edge over walleye so it could be interesting.