Why a Pike close season?

[steve2]

Can someone tell me why there is a Pike close season of 6 months on many waters? Is just traditional or is there a reason why only pike have a separate close season.
Also I have never understood why the open season for Pike covers 3 months of their spawning season.

 

[joshua]

Can someone tell me why there is a Pike close season of 6 months on many waters? Is just traditional or is there a reason why only pike have a separate close season.
Also I have never understood why the open season for Pike covers 3 months of their spawning season.

I'm not entirely sure but I could guess, pike are fragile creatures at best during winter. Now add the warm weather of summer and how delicate a fish is during spawning means it is so easy for a Pike to go belly up. Now surely the close season for Pike would be to protect the fishery's stock as well as the welfare of Pike.

 

[steve2]

Agree that Pike are a bit fragile by why an open season in their spawning season and not when they are at their fittest.

 

[thecrow]

The whole closed season is a cock up. not being able to fish for pike at certain times and then allowing anglers to fish for them during their spawning period is just plain daft imo. Rules made by those that haven't a clue about conservation.

 

[sam vimes]

I'm no piker, but I have rubbed shoulders with a few on mixed fishery syndicates. I've always found that the fiercest advocates of a self imposed pike closed season are the PAC members. They usually stick to a mantra of 1st Oct until the end of the normal coarse season. The fact that this often means that they'll be fishing during, or just prior, to pike spawning times doesn't seem to be an issue for them.

The reasons I've heard for not fishing for pike in the summer season seem to vary. The most basic is that they want to give a relatively delicate species a break. Pike are often fairly vulnerable when water temperatures are relatively high. They don't tend to recover well after capture and release. They also have a nasty habit of ending up very deeply hooked when they get more active with the higher temperatures. How they apply to dirty great stillwaters, that never get very warm, or rivers with upland sources, is quite beyond me.

I'm not entirely convinced by all of the reasons given, especially when they end up fishing for gravid fish in late winter/early spring. I also think that putting arbitrary set dates on it (beyond those inflicted by law) is a little too dogmatic for my liking.

 

[Philip]

The after October start is a silly rule in my opinion. Usually put in place for the reasons mentioned above, that Pike are fragile and higher summer temperatures mean they dont recover so well. I have also seen it said they fight more in summer so thats dangerous too for them or that they suffer more in summer as there is less oxygen in the water etc etc etc.

I am quite sure Pike dont like getting caught at any time of the year and I doubt very much it makes any difference if we catch them summer or winter.

This is one of the (rare) occasions that I actually think some of the continentals are actually more in touch with reality than the UK anglers. In France for example Predator fishing is usually banned from end of January to start of May on both rivers and stillwaters for spawning.

 

[sagalout]

This thing about them not recovering in warm weather due to how hard they fight and oxygen levels in the water seems to be slightly suspect because a lot are caught on light gear when they take the roach, etc that are the target species so they are then played for ages on light tackle and I have never found a problem unhooking and returning them afterwards.

 

[tigger]

This thing about them not recovering in warm weather due to how hard they fight and oxygen levels in the water seems to be slightly suspect because a lot are caught on light gear when they take the roach, etc that are the target species so they are then played for ages on light tackle and I have never found a problem unhooking and returning them afterwards.

I actually prefer to fish for pike during the summer months when they actually fight rather than come in like played out bream during the winter. I've never had one go belly up on me yet in the summer months.....same goes for barbel.
I know i'm going a little off track here but people harp on about playing a fish for longer can kill it, that's nonsense as all my barbel caught on float fishing gear leave bow waves as soon as I release them. I've often seen people having to mess about with fish to stop them going belly up and floating off down river after catching them on heavy leger set ups.

If there is a closed season for pike it should be now.

 

[Philip]

I actually prefer to fish for pike during the summer months when they actually fight rather than come in like played out bream during the winter. I've never had one go belly up on me yet in the summer months.....same goes for barbel.
I know i'm going a little off track here but people harp on about playing a fish for longer can kill it, that's nonsense as all my barbel caught on float fishing gear leave bow waves as soon as I release them. I've often seen people having to mess about with fish to stop them going belly up and floating off down river after catching them on heavy leger set ups.

If there is a closed season for pike it should be now.

Exactly. Pike spawn earlier than most so the fry will be big enough to basically eat everything else that spawns after.

Totally agree on the fight aspect too. If we start getting worried about how long we play them for then I recon we are moving into risky territory as whats a "long" fight ? ...30mins ? ...15mins ? ...10mins ? ...2mins ? ...if we go down that route we may as well say zero minutes is best of all for them and stop fishing altogether.

 

[steve2]

On one of my lakes I know where the pike spawn so I don't fish there. Others who are members of the PAC do because this is when they expect to catch the bigger females. Makes a bit of a mockery of the PAC pike protection don’t fish for them in the summer advice.

 

[thames mudlarker]

I actually prefer to fish for pike during the summer months when they actually fight rather than come in like played out bream during the winter. I've never had one go belly up on me yet in the summer months.....same goes for barbel.
I know i'm going a little off track here but people harp on about playing a fish for longer can kill it, that's nonsense as all my barbel caught on float fishing gear leave bow waves as soon as I release them. I've often seen people having to mess about with fish to stop them going belly up and floating off down river after catching them on heavy leger set ups.

If there is a closed season for pike it should be now.

Absolutely Ian I totally agree mate, I've never ever had a problem playing, landing and returning pike wheather it's summer or winter and I've caught em on light gear and ok admittedly may take a little while to get in but they've not been played hard and seriously stressed the hell out of whilst landing em and they all go back perfectly OK

I think the damage is often done where others actually play em far to hard and with brute force literally yank em out of the water and up onto the bank within no time
This to me is what causes the server stress of the pike by being completely exhausted and returned when it's clearly not had time to recover,

Over the years I've had to literally take over from inexperienced pike anglers who have tried to release pike that are badly stressed and I've had to hold the fish in the water for upto 20 mins at times and all because they've bullied them far to quick and straight up onto the bank.

After repeating this with 3-4 pike all caught from the very same anglers becomes largely annoying

Nowadays there's plenty of experienced pike anglers out there that are generally willing to offer good advice aswell as plenty of decent media articles and YouTube footage.

There's absolutely no excuse what so ever for the bad playing and handling of pike......and realistically this should apply to all fish and not just pike :thumbs:

 

[steve2]

Looking into the pike close or in some case predator close season it would appear that in those countries that have a close season it is in February and March. The spawning seasons the opposite to this country.
It also appears that in the UK there is some clubs that allow all year round lure fishing plus dead baiting in the winter months. It all gets a bit confusing.

 

[thecrow]

Its all a cock up, can fish here cant fish there cant fish rivers but can fish canals that have movement, can fish for predators during their spawning period, can fish with worm on rivers as long as the hook is of a certain size and gape, on and on it goes, to keep the closed season improves nothing to want to keep it is down to emotion and rose coloured glasses.

 

[symonh2000]

On my local river there is hardly ever anyone fishing duing the open season, so having no closed season would make little difference anyway.

It is a shame that just as the weather starts to improve we have to stop fishing rivers.

 

[mikench]

Never caught a pike! The last roach I caught yesterday at around 1.5lb had lost part of its gill cover presumably to a predator . There is a no pike fishing rule on this water so I assume there must be pike! What happens if a pike takes your roach, Rudd or gudgeon as you are reeling in? Pike do not know of this restriction

 

[Jeff Woodhouse]

Can someone tell me why there is a Pike close season of 6 months on many waters? Is just traditional or is there a reason why only pike have a separate close season. Also I have never understood why the open season for Pike covers 3 months of their spawning season.

It is traditional, but for heaven knows why.
Firstly pike spawn early, like perch and dace, very often in February and into March. Yes, 6 weeks whilst the season is still on and of course, the big girls are bigger then if gravid, which means the captors can hold up a fatter fish.

It was said by (I think) Barrie Rickards (famous pike angler) that May and June are the times when pike eat a great percentage of their seasonal diet, as much as 60%. They are active and full of beans, but being a big fish and expending a lot of energy in the fight, they can succumb to lactic acids building up in their muscle tissues and this can lead to mortalities. So the best thing is in summer, fish with good heavy tackle and keep the fight as short as possible.

I did offer some of the general 'traditionalists' (re close season) a compromise on the rivers. In February, March, and April, ban livebaits, deadbaits and lures to protect predators. In April May and June, ban all other baits intended for species other than predators. That way, only April would be the month when no fishing was allowed on rivers, but that excludes small lures and flies for trout, of course. It would please most people, I believe, but my offer was rejected as being too complicated.

 

[mikench]

Its all a cock up, can fish here cant fish there cant fish rivers but can fish canals that have movement, can fish for predators during their spawning period, can fish with worm on rivers as long as the hook is of a certain size and gape, on and on it goes, to keep the closed season improves nothing to want to keep it is down to emotion and rose coloured glasses.

I often look at the rules for some of the waters I am allowed ( theoretically ) to fish and think just ban fishing and be done with it

 

[fishing4luckies]

So on this page of the thread alone we've got someone advocating heavy tackle and keeping the fight short, and another suggesting that hauling them in is doing the damage.

I have no idea which is right (Jeff & Thames Mudlarker) and I don't doubt that you both have a far greater depth and breadth of knowledge about this than I do (I normally catch Pike by accident, and then vary rarely) but it shows that if you ask two anglers the same question you'll get two (very different) answers.

I think I'd better stick to avoiding Pike, or just shoot them and be done with it. (joking...)

 

[steve2]

I have now joined 2 new clubs that both allow lure fishing in the summer months and bait fishing from October.
One of the clubs I was a member of banned lure fishing for anything on all its waters in the summer in case you hooked a pike.
So it would seem that on the whole pike close season rules are a mess.

 

[Wilko]

My club doesn't allow any Pike fishing from 1st April to 30th September.