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[winter steel]

Did you even bother reading the article?

[UncleTrout]

wintersteel,

I read another article by the chap you mentioned (couldn't find the specific one you were talking of).  The overwhelming difference I think is that this guy was talking about pike minnows that were illegally introduced to an area, not native fish.  Pike minnows are native to most BC rivers and many lakes and have been a natural part of the ecological balance in these streams for hundreds, if not thousands of years.  Sure they eat salmon eggs and salmon fry etc, but so do raindow trout, cuthroat, bull trout/dollies, whitefish etc.  Do we need to go around bonking all of them too?  Or do we only leave the ones that we deem to be sporting?

In any event, IMHO, bonking pike minnows is not and has never been the answer to salmon and steelhead or other sportfish population issues.  Keeping some pikeminnos to use as sturgy bait where legal, in my opinion is fine as long as they are not wasted.  I think it would also be fine to present them to eagles, ospreys etc. if there was one obviously in the immediate area looking for an immediate meal.  Killing a native fish of any type and wasting it though is just wrong.  Of course, there may be some areas in BC where pike minnows are not native - I have different opinions in such situations.

To they guy who started this thread, you mentioned that you were fishing the Deadman drainage.  I don't believe these lakes have ever been very productive for trout and have always been highly populated with "coarse" fish.  Many people may find this hard to believe, but most of the lakes in the Kamloops area did NOT have a natural rainbow trout population until they were introduced to these lakes by man (including some of Kamloops' world class lakes!).  I'd be willing to bet that a lot of these lakes, if not most, had natural populations of peamouth chub, and pike minnow's (coarse fish) though...

[Rodney]

Hey, we have a minnow lover here!

Those are good points UncleTrout. People have to realize, to raise the salmon populations, we need to reduce human impacts. These include harvesting, development, gravel extraction, pollution, water extraction, mining, and other outdoor activities.

Keep in mind that northern pikeminnow and other natural predators make up a selective pressure that continues the evolutionary process on the salmon populations. slower, weaker fry are eaten, while faster, stronger ones escape to the ocean. The end result is a gene pool that produces stronger and faster fish. Human harvest does not induce that process for the better, because we take out the bigger, stronger ones (or actually just any fish) for food. Every species in an ecosystem has costs and benefits to its habitat and associated species. By disrupting the food web and interactions between populations, we may in fact be putting the species that we try to save at risk.

Culling of a population or introducing a species to control another pest should always be the last option after sufficient sampling and analysis have been done.

[winter steel]

Rodney and Uncle Trout (great name by the way) you raise points that I believe every true sportsman would agree with. Sure improved stream flows, restricted harvesting, ocean survival, development etc....etc.... are all detrimental or have an impact (both +/-) to the fish and sport that we love. However, due to overharvesting, stream degradation etc..etc.. those bull trout (dollies), rainbows and cutthroat unfortunately do not take the lions share of the fry that swim down stream as there numbers are well depleted. Dollies/Bull Trout and Cutthroat are piscivorous fish and used to control the population (to some extent) on rivers where they were present. However as the number of predators disappeared over the past two decades there numebrs increased dramatically in the Pitt. Also, Rodney I agree with your theory of evolution in terms of survival of the fittest, however strength in numbers also plays a role in that. A population must have natural predators to be kept it in check, however, should the numbers be skewed for what ever reason it could have a dramatic impact on the ecosystem and all particpating members of it. I am not a marine biologist, science major or Jacques Crousteau (did I spell that right?) I just felt that those that took the pike minnows on the Deadman should not have been persecuted (for a lack of a better word-its late) as such. As I mentioned in previous posts the lower Pitt used to be one of my favorite stomping grounds when I was a young fishermen and it has definately changed and not for the better. Has urbanization played a role: absolutely, stream degradation:definately, over harvesting:certainly, ocean survival: without a doubt and an increase in the population of pike minnows: an emphatic yes. Uncle Trout if you use google as a search engine type in  Bill Thorington November 1 2004 Friends of the Eel river. He has written some interesting articles on the topic of Pike Minnows. Rodney, it would be interesting to see how much information the DFO or our province has on pike minnows and there impact on a streams/rivers/lakes ecosystem. It seems to me that the state of Washington has done extensive studies (or have provided the funding for such studies) on pike minnows and there impact on the Columbia and surrounding rivers. The internet if used right is a wonderful resource, tight lines to all.

[keithr]

I guess it turns out this isn't as easy a topic as I expected.  I wish squaw fish didn't have so many bones.  And the ones in the river near our place in Mexico are just riddled with parasites (little knots in the flesh).  Has anybody tried smoking them? Would the brine soften up those bones?

[Rodney]

Winter steel, good points. The Cultus Lake sockeye recovery plan has had some extensive pikeminnow studies done in the past. I'll try to fetch out some information to share with you later on (ie. after sockeye season, too many meetings until the end of this summer).

Keith, several Chinese anglers who I know personally have tried making fish cakes out of them by pounding the flesh to small pieces. They say it worked out very well. By the way, where are you now?

[keithr]

We got back to Oregon yesterday.  I did some fishing on Powell Lake.  It was beautiful (really beautiful) there (we were on a floating cabin for a week), but the fishing was pretty slow--I caught a few cutthroats.  I'm going to make a post in the cooking section re: squawfish cakes.  I'll bet there is some seasoning involved.