Pike: don’t kill the big ones
A long time ago now, I was one of the limited number
of pike fishing enthusiasts and travelling long distance regularly in search of
bigger than average pike on famous waters like Hornsea Mere in the east Yorkshire.
I worried a lot about the ignorant attitudes then prevalent among anglers who
were not pike fishing enthusiasts.
Well-know pike specialists including the late Ray Webb and occasionally Barrie
Rickards shared my fears.
Because pike eat other fish we often cringed when we saw less well-formed anglers
killing all the pike that they caught, especially fairly big pike.
We knew then, and thank goodness most anglers know now, that is a mistake to kill
a big pike.
Only sizeable pike prey upon small pike and if you kill a big pike in a water
there will be more predation on other fish, not less.
The problem is extremely worrying in what are mainly trout fishing venues.
Actually pike, despite their fearsome reputation, are rather frail creatures that
need careful treatment after being landed.
Knowing how to unhook a pike after you have landed it and how to release it into
the water again is very important indeed as is the use of terminal tackles that
are not dangerous to the health of pike and having the right unhooking tools as
well.
I will concede that there are just a very few waters where an over abundance of
pike in a small lake may be threatening to the stocks of other fish but even there
releasing the bigger pike instead of killing them is a wise move.
However, in our hobby strange things happen that seem impossible.
A case in point is the late Walter Bower’s fishery in Nottinghamshire.
Walter had two fishing lakes and a length of the river Trent for his customers,
and great fisheries they were.
One week Walter dug out a third lake on the site, and the following day a group
of anglers knocked on his door and asked permission to fish in the new lake.
Walter readily gave permission and chuckled because no fish had been released
into the new lake so presumably it was fishless. The anglers rigged up spinning
tackle and, to everyone’s amazement, landed six pike of good size! Don’t
ask me to explain it, because I can’t.