Nice visit to Pine Lake today

[Fisherdan]

Went to Pine Lake with my little guy today. It was a beautiful day, and we caught a bunch of small dinky pike… which was perfect for him!

Growing up I spent a lot of summers there. This was about 25-30 years ago. At that time the pike were bigger. Usually about 1.5 - 2 pounds. We would sometimes get a 4 or 5 pound fish. Never any walleye. There were lots of perch. Nice ones too. And not too many restrictions on keeping fish back then.

The last time I visited was maybe 10 years ago. We were catching walleye and pike. Couldn’t believe that I was catching walleye at Pine Lake! That was almost unheard of before. Apparently the walleye stocking program was a great success… but at the great expense of the perch which had been decimated by this point.

My little guy and I did not catch any walleye today. I spoke to a local who seemed to think that there weren’t too many walleye anymore. I’m not sure… today was just one little trip.

It is amazing to see how a lake can evolve over a period of time. Even the area around a lake. There was an old barn that has tipped over and collapsed. The last time I saw it it was just an old barn! The algae in the lake hasn’t changed. It is what it is, and what it always has been — But that’s just looking at it through my short timeline. I’m sure someone from decades before would have seen a very different lake, perhaps without algae.

[Daslogster]

I caught my first fish here 45 years ago and finally went back this year after 35 years of not fishing it, more rec users but the pike were the same size, in the same place, no real perch or walleye but the lake was as I remembered it. Good times.

[Jims83cj5]

I started fishing there in 1976, we had a house trailer by the hotel were the golf course club house is now. Lots of good sized pike, caught dozens of perch over 1.5 lbs every year. You could catch perch on anything. Biggest pike was 19 lbs. got my first walleye in 1981. Only auger for ice fishing then was the old cup ones, ore an ax and a crow bar. Good place to grow up as a teenager lots of good memories.

[Talking moose]

Caught my first fish there. 1970’s.
As kids we would drop a j hook and maggot off the docks and catch many perch of varying size.
Some of my most vivid childhood memories come from pine lake.

[TROLLER]

My memory was getting out of the water and having a leach hooked onto my leg.