Jim Myers Thesis

Received this e-mail from Jim.  Couldn't get his table on here quite right but we can follow it quite well and can definitely see our efforts to preserve our fishery are working.  Our catch and release policy and proper handling of the fish will ensure trophy fishing for years to come.  For his research, Jim will receive the Davin Lake PhD.

Diana,

 In the world of Internet fishing blogs you don’t often get to see any real data to back up the claims of a trophy fishery.  Hera are some of the data to back up our Davin/Wathaman pike stories.  The Davin/Wathaman pike are getting bigger based on what we have been catching.  The catch and release seems to be working well.  Over the last 5-6 years we have caught and released a total of 142 hat pike (30 inches and up).  We measure lengths but not weights to reduce stress on the fish.  For convenience we split the data into small (30-33 inchers), medium (34-27 inchers), large (38 plus inchers) and extra-large (40 plus inchers).   On average about 63% are our hat pike are small, 24% medium and 13% large.  That makes a total of 100% for the mathematicians.  The extra-large hat pike is 8% of the total.  In 2011 we did not see many of the medium sized hat pike (7%).  In 2012  we saw a lot of medium hat pike (44%).  The increase in medium hat pike may suggest that a dominant age class (likely) or improved fishing skills (not so likely).  On average our crew of three expects to catch one hat pike per day.  About one in eight are large hat pike (38 plus inchers).  That not does not happen day every due to weather and/or fishing ineptitude but it does happen often enough to keep us coming back for the past 12 years. 

Jim

Pike Length Summary Tables (2007, 2009-2012)



Year:  2007
Total Hat Pike:  24
30-33 inchers:  18
34-37 inchers:  3
38+ inchers:  3
40+ inchers*:  2

Year:  2009
Total Hat Pike:  40
30-33 inchers:  23
34-37 inchers:  12
38+ inchers:  5
40+ inchers*:  2

Year:  2010
Total Hat Pike:  24
30-33 inchers:  16
34-37 inchers:  5
38+ inchers:  3
40+ inchers*:  2

Year:  2011
Total Hat Pike:  27
30-33 inchers:  21
34-37 inchers:  2
38+ inchers:  4
40+ inchers*:  4

Year:  2012
Total Hat Pike:  27
30-33 inchers:  12
34-37 inchers:  13
38+ inchers:  3
40+ inchers*:  1

Total
Total Hat Pike:  142
30-33 inchers:  90
34-37 inchers:  35
38+ inchers:  18
40+ inchers*:  11

Average
Total Hat Pike:  28.4
30-33 inchers:  18
34-37 inchers:  7
38+ inchers:  3.6

40+ inchers*:  2.2

*40+ inchers is a subset of 38+ inchers. Total is based on 30-33, 34-37 and 38+.