Culling Pike

[Martin_Evans]

Not long been registered on the site so apologies if this has been discussed before but I think it's an important subject.

I was walking to my peg on Saturday at Fishley cut and had to walk past a pike that has been left to rot on the bank - it had got to be 15lb+. I hear so many people complaining about being pestered by Pike then saying they should be 'tapped on the head'. This just makes the problem worse.

Predators can only survive if there is sufficient prey to sustain the population. If there isn't, then the population will shrink, if there is sufficient prey, it will grow. Eventually, the population will stabilize. It's the predator: prey relationship.

The problems we get where a water is chocca with Jacks is because people are removing pike. Think of it like this. At spawning time, because some pike have been artificially removed, there is a glut of prey created by human intervention. This means the young pike will have a high survival rate and we get stacks of small pike in the water. The prey that the large pike I saw dead would have eaten will now free up resources for the other pike. The same goes for people who say 'only remove the Jacks'. This just leads to more prey fish come spawning time. If left alone, nature will even itself out without people meddling.

And a Pikes biggest predator? A bigger pike.

None of this is opinion, it's fact 

[Drynet]

Good post Martin it would be interesting to see how the Anglers who do this react if commercial fisherman started throwing nuisance silvers up the bank.

[Simple]

Mother nature has done a good job for all these years, whats the point in trying to step in

Things always even themselves out.

[joffmiester]

around here its the eastern Europeans that sort the pike out

[TK]

Hi Juan Chub - after discussing this scenario with a no of 'authorities', I have to agree with thee.......

Wasnt aware of a second dead pike - the one stinking on the bank of the wides was dead in the water the previous Sunday down there and had been 'fished out' by someone and left up the bank.

I'm sure that one died of 'natural' causes because a fortnight earlier it looked like it was 'struggling' as it meandered about a few inches under the surface......

[Geoff_E]

As Martin will tell you I was one the kill em mob , but after Martin and my eldest son put me straight (he's aquatic biologist and had to write a 12,000 word dissertation on pike) I'm now in full agreement with Martin, leave em alone and they'll sort themselfs out

[Simple]

I always smile when I see Woodhouse advertise a match..

No pike to be weighed.
No Pike to be harmed.

[joffmiester]

we had a angler in the winter league band because he killed a pike
no matter how much trouble you have i couldn't kill any fish let a loan a pike

[TK]

No Pike to be harmed

That's also quoted within the inside of our club season tickets Simps - along with no fish to be removed


But there are some within the club that would like to see the pike culled or removed from the canal - you'll have to 'educate' them Juan Chub

[Martin_Evans]

you'll have to 'educate' them Juan Chub

I think that's the problem TK. No angler intentionally wants to harm a water but they think they're doing the right thing  :( As my dad said, years ago he used to be a pike basher until my oldest brother who studied pike educated him on the subject.

I don't think its too many of the matchmen who want to cull pike but its mainly the casual angler and a lot of the teenagers who do it. It's up to us folk to spread the word I guess 

[Simple]

you'll have to 'educate' them Juan Chub

Is this Martins name by any chance

[TK]

Is this Martins name by any chance

Just a slight 'modification' of his own suggestion Simps

[bill yards]

Interesting posts on pike but just sometimes there is an imbalance of nature that needs a helping hand.
A long time back on the Staffs-Worcs Canal at Stafford the venue was inundated with pike so much so that they even became stunted. The problem was (older readers may well remember) there was a disease around called columnaris that meant the loss of a huge percentage of the roach population, even the River Trent was badly affected, but more so in some waters than others.
IF you caught A roach in those days and put it in a keepnet you would get at least six mini pike round your net, it really was that bad. From a match point of view bream and tench were plentiful so turnouts were still up.
Anyway, it got worse and worse, the pike got smaller and you were hooking them on bread, maggots and pinkies.
We sat round a table and came up with the idea of netting it, bearing in mind we have 5 miles of this cut.
We netted literally thousands of small pike, some just six inches long; if I remember right we left a handful of larger ones in there. It took an age (all through the closed season one year) before the nets diminished with the amount of pike but they did eventually. For the record there was hardly a roach to be seen but then again pike are not difficult to net.
All these pike, thousand upon thousand of them went into the River Sow, - we had nowhere elses to put them.

Since this helping hand to Mother Nature we have never had a problem. These cases are extremely rare, I know, but they do and can happen

[lloydy]

Don't know much about pike but Nige Williams who does once told me if you kill a 10lb pike it would get replaced by loads of jacks