Pike Minnows???

[GOT2FISH]

:shrug: I have heard that the best Pike Minnow is a dead Pike Minnow. Most of the people I have fished with thump this nasty little cridders in the head and send it down stream to help with the food chain. Ive heard they are not native and were bait fish at one time,Ive also heard they will distroy Salmon and Steelhead eggs.So what is the proper way to deal with these fish after caught? The main reason I'm asking is I also heard you could be cited for Unlawful Disposail of a Non GAME FISH[I think thats the term he used] I just want to do it write PLEASE HELP thanks

[Miss B Haven]

The best thing to do is turn 'em in and get, what.... $3.00 a piece now? :smile:

There's an ODFW bounty on 'em dude, whats that tell you? :grin:

[STGRule]

First thing is that they ARE native fish. They are a member of the minnow family and have been here as long as the salmon have. Because they are pisciverous (fish eating), part of their diet includes salmon and steelhead smolt. Please note the "part" of their diet. The only place their population causes a problem is above the dams. The water system has changed from a dynamic river to big lakes. This has caused them to be artificially more efficient at finding and eating smolts. And may cause them to be more numerous than before in those reservoirs. The larger the pikeminnow, the more individual smolts it will eat.
The Sport Reward program is designed to remove the largest of the fish. Because they eat a higher percentage of the smolts than the smaller fish, you can remove a few and have a large reduction in the number of smolts eaten. This program is NOT to eradicate the pikeminnow, just control the population size structure.
Per individual fish, walleye (which is a non-native species) eat more smolt per fish than pikeminnow do. Because there are fewer of them than the pikeminnow the numbers lost to walleye are smaller right now.

[ 10-24-2003, 03:28 PM: Message edited by: STGRule ]

[Paddlefish]

They're VERY native.

They seem to have, over the millenia, achieved a sort of equilibrium in some rivers, like your (Hi, Salem) Willamette, but have an unnatural advantage in the dam-controlled Columbia, where they hang out below the dams and prey on disoriented smolts. Hence the aforementioned bounty. (And some guys do pretty well financially, considering that the alternative is "going to work." graemlins/idea.gif )

Said bounty, however, doesn't exist on the Willamette, for example, so don't try cashing in on your Wheatland-area whoppers. The pikeminow police claim that they can detect an illegal immigrant pikeminnow instantly.

What are they good for?

They were great for a photo of an exuberant 4-year-old who didn't really care what kind of fish she was catching so successfully. :cool:

As for disposal, the "food chain augmentation method" already mentioned doesn't seem that outrageous to me, and I've never heard of a citation for illicit pikeminnow distribution but, if a threatening ticket-writer is peering over your shoulder, take them home "for food." And next summer you can marvel about how much more fertile your vegetable garden seems. :wink:

P.S. The biggest, ugliest, nastiest one I ever saw was probably three-pounds-plus, had only one eye, had a large salmon smolt protruding from his gullet, and seemed to say "ARRRRRR" when caught.

[ 10-24-2003, 03:38 PM: Message edited by: Paddlefish ]

[Aufish101]

They make good crab bait too!

[Pete]

I believe the bounty program is over until next year.

[kayakfisher]

Ok, but where and how to catch them...?


Mike

[Hess]

Read all about it at www.pikeminnow.org! (http://www.pikeminnow.org)

[ 10-25-2003, 08:52 AM: Message edited by: Hess ]

[troybuz]

Last week I caught a 24"...4 Pounder on the Tualatin River. I could put my whole fist in its mouth. I took great pleasure in removing him from the fishery, making way for more Bass????
He was heavy, but not much of a fighter either.
Happy Fishing,
Troy

[Nanook]

Take both of their eyes out and put them back into the river. Not that I would ever do that. graemlins/eek13.gif

[STGRule]

Rick, that's disgusting. graemlins/eek13.gif

[Nanook]

...and disturbing, but they make a great food source for sturgeon after surgery. :wink:

[Silver Hilton]

Another thing - many if not most of what are caught by salmon fisherfolk are not pike minnows, but peamouth chub, which are nothing but food for walleye. You've got a pea mouth if the mouth is small and somewhat underslung, like a sucker. These don't hurt anything, and should be let go, in my opinion.

[crabbait]

Walleye, on the other hand, should be filleted and deep fried, not released.

[Keta]

crabbait,
A flush release is the best for walleye.
Pikeminnows on the other hand don't eat well at all :sick:

Hey Skein!! What's a Pikeminnow?

[ 10-26-2003, 10:10 PM: Message edited by: Keta ]

[fishnagain]

I fish for pikeminnows,and know that peamouth and ********* cross breed.They will pay you for crossbreed fish also.

The pea mouth eat every thing that the sqaw fish do they just dont have a big enough mouth to catch smolt's but you can bet that they are eating all the eggs they can find.I personally snap their heads back with a pair of needle nose and feed them to the birds it's cool to see a bald eagle come from nowwhere and pick it up.Most of the time you'll see the birds fighting over them Bald Eagles, Blue heron,perigrin and seagulls all chasing each other.

[ 10-26-2003, 09:30 PM: Message edited by: fishnagain ]

[Nanook]

Originally posted by crabbait:
Walleye, on the other hand, should be filleted and deep fried, not released. <font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">Exactly. Big or not, they need to be fished hard and eaten around here.

Rick

[dan(or)]

Walleye.... what an interesting mind set most NW fisherman have on Walleye. OFWD department continues to believe that the eradication of walleye will bring back the salmon and steelhead.

As I hear it over the last two years, the returns of both salmon and steelhead reached or exceeded all records kept on the Columbia. AND the walleye population was intact during the years that the smolt ran to the ocean???

And now for some researched facts (from and ODFW study) Pike minnows’ diet is 78% smolts and walleyes are 13% smolts.

I am a walleye fisherman and believe that both fish can and HAVE co existed for many years in the Columbia River. The Columbia is/ was a record producing walleye river that routinely produces large walleyes. Oregon is blind to the opportunity to bring major bucks to the state in tourism $$$. The Professional Walleye Tour and the RCL( the other big national tourney) spend thousands no, hundreds of thousands of dollars in local communities when the tourney rolls in. BUT Oregon continues to, with the support of misinformation, destroy a world class fishery.

By the way isn't smallmouth bass a non native fish? I would think that they would take their fair share of smolts, yet I don't see any bashing of the bass..... I wonder how many other fish are not native??? Shad? Some trout? Imported strains of salmon and steelhead? Hmmmm……..

Too bad that the opinion is so misguided...

dan

[Grantspastor]

I usally whack them on the head with my priest (not the Catholic kind), break their necks, then release them....but I think they're gonna be o.k. (They aren't native to the Rogue...and their numbers are alarming.)

[papa bear]

There are a great many of these critters in Dexter Reservoir and I have caught a 3 pounder there. I watched one that looked even bigger try to catch a duck, grabbed her leg and she flapped around in circles and finally got loose and flew away.

In summer the rainbows here bite early and as the sun rises higher it's all ********* (oops I mean pikeminnow) until almost sunset, then the rainbows start up again. You can catch these things on snails, slugs, hot dogs, grocery store shrimp. They seem to like their bait a little riper than the trout do.

They hit with more confidence than a trout but you hook them in the lip more, trout in the same water will inhale a worm and get guthooked but a pikeminnow usually doesn't. Kind of a hard lip. People here that target them for whatever reason go with a treble but I think the single hook does better.

The bigger ones fight OK but it's a steady pull like a catfish, you know right away when you've got one that it's not a gamefish.

I admit to having eaten them but as one guidebook says, "edible but not appreciated."

papa bear

[STGRule]

And now for some researched facts (from and ODFW study) Pike minnows’ diet is 78% smolts and walleyes are 13% smolts.
<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">You misinterpreted the statement. It says:

Northern pikeminnow Ptychocheilus oregonensis accounted for approximately 78% of the smolt losses although walleye Stizostedion vitreum (13%), and smallmouth bass (9%) accounted for the remaining 22% (Rieman et al. 1991). <font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">This is 78% of the loss, not 78% of the diet. And 13% of the loss, not of the diet. In 1991 the matching population data for that reservoir were: Northern Pikeminnow (85,316), Smallmouth Bass (34,954), and Walleye (15,168). I didn't add the confidence intervals for these population estimates but they are online. In other words there were many more pikeminnow than walleye in 1991. I'm trying to find more recent population estimates. I believe the walleye population has increased since then and because of the bounty program, pikeminnow numbers are down. That would translate into more of the loss being attributed to the walleye than before. I'll find the estimates and post.

[ 10-31-2003, 06:41 PM: Message edited by: STGRule ]

[dan(or)]

I stand corrected! Thanks!

dan