Northwest Fishing Reports

See Seattle Times article. http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/nort ... /#comments" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The world is full of Jackasses and apparently one of them went to great lengths to illegally plant this pike in Lake Washington. Lake Washington is a substantial distance from any pike population, and for someone to go to the the effort to keep one alive long enough to get it into the lake is asinine!
If you've ever read any of my posts, you know that I am an avid pike fisherman and would love to see a sustained pike fishery in the state of Washington, but this is beyond absurd.
My guess is that someone thought they would get a real kick out of stirring the pot if they got this fish into the lake and someone caught it. Well they now have a chance to get their jollies.
I can't imagine there are very many pike in the lake, and for the few that someone may have been dropped in there, to run into each other and reproduce, would be a grand coincidence. I wouldn't be too worried about pike becoming a problem in Lake Washington. However, I would love to see the MORON that put this fish in the lake, get caught and prosecuted, and become an example to other idiots.
This will be just another black eye on the face of the Northern Pike in the state of Washington.

I don't know if NP can reproduce in Lake Washington, or whether this fish is an isolated illegal plant. Those are questions for WDFW. One idiot planting one fish won't do a significant amount of damage (how much can one fish eat? not enough to eat out a 20-mile-long lake), but a propagating and expanding population would be a real problem, as NP can quickly overrun a water no matter how large it is. (See the Missouri River reservoirs for examples.) At this point, we can't assume this fish is the only one in the lake, we can only hope it is.

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Don Wittenberger wrote:......(See the Missouri River reservoirs for examples.)

Yes, a true dip who is selfish. Hopefully it's minimal impact.

I know I'm being nit picky here, as for the Missouri River reservoirs, please use a different example as the fish and game have stocked and still continue to stock pike in these reservoirs (see Ft peck stocking reports).

I fish Washington a lot. Caught a 22" Pikeminnow this year. This will give me another species to be looking for! Planter is a Jackwagon for sure...

Talked to the Fish and Wildlife person at the Seattle Boat Show and she said that is not the first Northern pulled out of Lake Washington. There may already be a population it seems...

Have we been too eager to blame the resident cutts for the supposedly gobbling up all the salmon smolt?

Hey! I have been doing my part to try and catch all of the cutthroat I can!

sickbayer wrote:Have we been too eager to blame the resident cutts for the supposedly gobbling up all the salmon smolt?

Probably not. Cutthroat are voracious predators. See pages 24-25:

http://www.forestcamping.com/dow/pacfic ... mping_lake

Not to hijack the thread, but the cuttthroat aren't singularly responsible for the poor sockeye returns. You can add pike minnow, bass, perch, juvenile coho, cormorants, griebs and just about anything else that lives in the lake to the list. David Beauchamp, from the Univeristy of Washington's school of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, recently gave a presentation on predation of salmon smolts in Lake Washington and brought up the issue that is artifical lighting. With all of the street, bridge, house and building lights in the area, there is no longer any true cover of darkness for these young fish to use when rearing in the lake and especially when out migrating though the shallow section of the system starting with the arboreetum and ending at the locks. To make matters worse, with the advent of LED lighting, you are getting more light and light of a frequency that can penetrate deeper than the older lighting. So now you have these young fish rearing in a system where there is no true night, only an extended periond dusk, which we all know is when the predators are most effective. I always hated light pollution, now I have another reason.

G-Man wrote:Not to hijack the thread, but the cuttthroat aren't singularly responsible for the poor sockeye returns. You can add pike minnow, bass, perch, juvenile coho, cormorants, griebs and just about anything else that lives in the lake to the list. David Beauchamp, from the Univeristy of Washington's school of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, recently gave a presentation on predation of salmon smolts in Lake Washington and brought up the issue that is artifical lighting. With all of the street, bridge, house and building lights in the area, there is no longer any true cover of darkness for these young fish to use when rearing in the lake and especially when out migrating though the shallow section of the system starting with the arboreetum and ending at the locks. To make matters worse, with the advent of LED lighting, you are getting more light and light of a frequency that can penetrate deeper than the older lighting. So now you have these young fish rearing in a system where there is no true night, only an extended periond dusk, which we all know is when the predators are most effective. I always hated light pollution, now I have another reason.

Very interesting..

I know. We pat ourselves on the back for cleaning up the lake so it's nice a clear and then we go and light up the place at night. No wonder those stickleback quickly developed extra armor to protect themselves at the water clarity increased.

Although I don't think this is nearly as bad as the hysteria that follows. No doubt that this will have a negative impact on all esox species and anglers. The typical "Your fish killed my fish" response and fallout. This will certainly have a negative impact on the Washington tiger musky fishery. Average Joe Angler will kill a musky due to misidentification and it gives the regular tiger musky poacher an added crutch to fall on ignorance.

The Quadfather wrote:

G-Man wrote:Not to hijack the thread, but the cuttthroat aren't singularly responsible for the poor sockeye returns. You can add pike minnow, bass, perch, juvenile coho, cormorants, griebs and just about anything else that lives in the lake to the list. David Beauchamp, from the Univeristy of Washington's school of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, recently gave a presentation on predation of salmon smolts in Lake Washington and brought up the issue that is artifical lighting. With all of the street, bridge, house and building lights in the area, there is no longer any true cover of darkness for these young fish to use when rearing in the lake and especially when out migrating though the shallow section of the system starting with the arboreetum and ending at the locks. To make matters worse, with the advent of LED lighting, you are getting more light and light of a frequency that can penetrate deeper than the older lighting. So now you have these young fish rearing in a system where there is no true night, only an extended periond dusk, which we all know is when the predators are most effective. I always hated light pollution, now I have another reason.

Very interesting..

I can envision a new Seattle "excessive light tax" coming soon. Don't let Ed Murray see this post!