perch at cow lake

[Hard Water]

hey everyone, was out at cow last sunday,fished the north end ,both sides of the boat launch,from about 75 yards all the out to 450 yards to the west , and then about 50 yards to about 150 yards to the east,all we saw was a few 3 to 4 inchers ,think i was a little early? we drilled at least 20 holes or more ,and fished from 10 feet off the weeds to 60 yards out tring to find those tasty critters,but no luck ,therewas about 4 to 6 inches of ice ,but not good ice, im sure this -30 weather will help fix that up though.Anyway like i allready asked , do ya think i was too early?

[FisherPotch]

I'm not sure what it's like at Cow. I wouldn't think it's too early. I had some decent luck for perch last weekend at a different lake.

[Skidog]

I can't see it being to early, the ice is just later than usual. I have been wondering about cow and the pike they stocked in there. Did you see any of those?

Not good numbers of pike yet, not any real monsters yet. Give that lake 10 years, it will be putting out massive pike and even more huge perch.

[roughrider]

I was at Cow Lake last sunday as well. About the same luck as Hard Water. Had one jack cruise in and grabbed my hook, broke the line. He would have been close to legal. Definitely did not see any footballs. Ice was heaved up at the boat launch, could make it difficult to drive on this winter.

Almost legal pike at cow? So the pike was getting close to 40 inches?

[FisherPotch]

Originally Posted by TundraBuck

Almost legal pike at cow? So the pike was getting close to 40 inches?

Interesting, so they have made the size restriction 100 cm to try to build a pike pop?

[Skidog]

They're not still stocking trout in there are they?

The size limit was always 100 cm since they stocked them. In my opinion, there should be a 0 limit until a healthy number of pike and perch are reached. This goes back to the whole releasing the spawners thing, still being able to keep a big pike is BS and guys know it.

As far as trout stocking goes, I'm not exactly sure, I heard that they dump excess brood stocks in there that don't get put into Phyllis and Twin.

[roughrider]

The jack I saw was definitely between 80 and 100 cms. Not interested in catching jacks when I had seen him earlier that morning so I moved holes. Wasn't seeing any perch for a while before that anyways.

[The Elkster]

Based on the traffic that Cow gets summer and winter it sounds like it'd be a good lake to regularly stock with pike and have it a put and take pike lake. Unless there is a zero limit forever its gonna get fished out regardless of a slot limit or whatever. May as well just make it a mid sized pike factory. Hopefully the pike will make for a better size perch lake to boot but time will tell.