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I hate to have to be the bearer of bad news to all you Flat loving pike fishermen. There is a reason why the pike fishing is worse and worse every year. Put it this way a very high percentage of the fish I handled on the flats this year had fresh hook marks, torn gills and/or line wrap marks. Also the once immense average girths has dropped in size on average. Whether the girth drop is due to people cutting off treble hooks in the fish or infection making difficult for them to feed or whatever it may be. It ISN'T from a lack of feed availability. The one Saturday I was out this year there must of been 100 trucks parked along the plowed road. All of which had fishermen fishing around them. Unfortunately that pressure does an immense amount of damage to once world class fishery. I'm not saying it is dead or that there is not any big fish left but I know for a fact that there is a lot less of them around then when I first dropped a bait on the flats many years ago. I'm not sure what the answer is to help the fishery rebound but I have one suggestion. Circle hooks rather than trebles is my suggestion. I recently gave them a chance and found that my hook up percentage was very similar if not better than treble rigs. Also 95% of the fish we caught on them were hooked right in the corner of the mouth. Therefore easy and QUICK to remove as well as less likely to cause infection or DEATH. Yes that pike you had out on the ice for 5 minutes in the cold swam away, but how far did it really make it with it's frozen eyes and skin. Give it a thought and take it upon yourself to take better care of the pike we have left, because the way it's going right now is a one way street in the wrong direction.
Fished the flats Friday and Saturday, can drive a truck anywhere on the flats, Stay off the plowed trail there are a couple soft spots on it. Lots of trucks out there on the weekend. Fishing was pretty slow for nothing over 40.