Biologists, derby officials target northern pike

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For the past 26 years, the Pushaw Lake Snowmobile Club has hosted a popular ice fishing derby that targets the lake’s plentiful warm-water species.

When the club holds derby No. 27 this winter, participants will notice quite a change, thanks to a cooperative effort between the club, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, and the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission.

The regular prizes for bass and pickerel and perch will continue. But this year, there’s going to be an added emphasis on northern pike, which were illegally introduced into the lake and discovered there in 2003.

The extra attention to pike was deemed a good idea by club members after they met with DIF&W fisheries biologist Gordon “Nels” Kramer and ASC biologist Richard Dill.

“We were glad they did come to us,” said Harold Hopkins of Hudson, the club’s trail master. “There are a lot of sportsmen who are involved with the club, and we were more than happy to give whatever assistance we could to eradicate this problem.”

The plan is pretty simple: If you catch a pike, you’re urged to keep it. And if you catch another, keep and kill that one, too. While many derbies offer prizes for the largest of a given species caught, the Pushaw Lake Snowmobile Club is focusing on quantity, not quality.

“We decided we would change the format of weighing the pike,” club president Dale Pineo said. “It’s going to be [based on] the total weight of the pike on Saturday and the total weight on Sunday.”

This winter’s derby will take place on Feb. 3-4.

Pineo said anglers have noticed a difference in their fishery over the past few years and hope to improve that.

“We’ve seen a lot of big bass come out of here, a lot of big pickerel, a lot of big perch, but the size is going down on each one of them,” Pineo said. “Now that the pike are here, we’re afraid they’re going to ruin the complete fishery.”

That concern is not unfounded, according to state biologists.

The DIF&W’s Kramer said the pike need a lot of feed and are top-end predators who feed on whatever they choose.

“Pike, of course, don’t get big by eating aquatic invertebrates and worms and that sort of thing,” Kramer said. “They have a very big appetite, and it [takes] an average of between five and seven pounds of food to increase the body weight of a northern pike by one pound.”

Northern pike can go more than 20 pounds and will take in more than 100 pounds of food to get that large. And perch, bass, and pickerel aren’t the only things they’ll target when they’re hungry.

“I don’t want to overstate it at all, but it has been documented that northern pike can eat small, immature loons as well as mature, full-grown ducks and immature geese as well,” Kramer said.

One reason Pushaw Lake is getting so much attention is all it takes is a short swim for pike to end up in the Penobscot River or one of many other lakes or streams.

According to Kramer and Dill, the Penobscot River drainage is the second-largest in the state, and features 3,500 miles of streams that are inhabited by Eastern brook trout, as well as 33,000 surface acres of great ponds and lakes. All are at risk because of the northern pike introduction.

The continuing Atlantic salmon recovery efforts on the Penobscot are a driving force behind the interest of Dill’s ASC, and Kramer’s DIF&W continues to fight an uphill battle against all illegal introductions in the state.

Hopkins said the club’s involvement in an effort to reduce the pike population made perfect sense.

“Any fish that we get, it’s going to cut down on the entire future population [of pike],” Hopkins said. “Right now is our best opportunity to get some of the big adults and I think we’re going to have a good fishing season.”

Hopkins said he thinks anglers from across the region – not just those who live near Pushaw – will rally to help deplete the pike population, which fisheries biologists say may be relatively small at this point.

That limited population may boom soon, biologists warn.

“A ‘low’ population may mean a small number of adults, but there may be literally thousands of young-of-the-year or yearling pike [in Pushaw],” Kramer said. “Once these fish start to spawn successfully, there’s no telling, in very short order, how fast that population may expand.”

Dill said the reason for that is that an average pike is genetically gifted when it comes to producing offspring.

A 10-pound female Atlantic salmon, he said, produces about 7,500 eggs. A mature northern pike produces about 9,000 eggs … per pound of body weight.

That means that through trap-netting and angling pressure, the 22 female pike that were removed from Pushaw last year (weighing a total of 109 pounds) held upward of 981,000 eggs.

If only 1 percent of those fish had reached maturity, that would mean 9,810 spawning-age fish would have been swimming in Pushaw in as little as three years.

Dill admitted that eradicating pike from Pushaw isn’t likely a realistic option.

“Maximizing removal is what the objective [is],” Dill said. “Options for eradication are very low. Let’s face it, once the fish are put in the lakes, pretty much, they’re there.”

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t lessons that can be taught … and learned … at Pushaw.

A year ago, as a winter-long creel survey was performed, 38 percent of the anglers interviewed on Pushaw were contacted during the snowmobile club derby.

That number would have been higher if it hadn’t been for rainy weather on the Sunday of the two-day event, Dill said.

“What we determined [through the 2006 assessment] was there’s likely a low number of pike in Pushaw,” Dill said. “Working together with the snowmobile club, we may have the opportunity to control the number of fish in the lake.”

Educating the public about the problems arising after illegal introductions is another key focus.

That would be a welcome development to the anglers who host the derby.

“My initial thought [after hearing that pike had been introduced in Pushaw] was, ‘What a shame,'” Hopkins said. “This isn’t the only lake where things like that happen. It’s too bad that people who call themselves sportsmen will go ahead and do something like that.”

Warden applications sought

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife is seeking qualified applicants who are interested in pursuing a career in the Maine Warden Service.

The deadline for application is Jan. 19.

In order to qualify for employment, applicants must:

. Have a high school diploma or the equivalent.

. Be at least 21 years old by July 31, 2007, or 20 years old with an associate’s degree or 60 credit hours of post-secondary education.

. Have successfully passed the Maine Criminal Justice Academy’s “ALERT” exam.

. Have successfully passed the Maine Criminal Justice Academy’s pre-employment physical fitness test within the past year.

. Have or be able to obtain a valid Maine Class C driver’s license.

. Be willing to relocate anywhere within the state of Maine.

The Maine Warden Service was formed in 1880 and has grown to a complement of 124 uniformed wardens.

For more information about the application process, go to www.mefishwildlife.com and click on the “Game Warden Open Enrollment” link near the top of the page.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailiynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.