Rich

I have eaten spring suckers, panfried .. merely as a means to survive at the time, lol, long story.. canoe trip.. Anyway, they weren't that bad. Lots of tiny bones but in the ones 12-14" they cooked right out.

Glad to see you're feeling better sir.

You know swaying of the locals and visitors to believe that pike are a tasty nuisance should not be hard. Fishing pressure can actually have a huge impact on them.

It was when I hooked a 5lb brown on 8lb big game, he wrapped around a tree and I brought both the tree and the fish to the bank, that I realized thats some dang tough stuff!

Have fun out there today musky guys! Wish I could be fishin em today. Or fishing pike. Or fishing. Or really doing anything except cutting steaks. Lol

I would think #1 would be perch, as the kawarthas are littered with them. That being said, it never fails when I visit the k-lakes - EVERYTIME I jig for walleye, one gets eaten by a musky on the way up during the day at some point.

Trilene XL Armor Coat is up there, but I usually use Berkley Big Game and it's pretty darn tough.

Haaaaaaaa!

My favourite technique varies as the year goes on. In a few weeks my favourite tactic will be buzzbaits in the stumps for bass, then fall will come and I may favour tube jigs, or giant spinnerbaits It's ALL exciting, as long as a line's in the water I'm doing my favourite technique.

Thanks for the ideas everyone. I couldn't bring myself to eat a pike in any form. But I will definitely try flaking some bluegills. Why am I the only one that seems to love bluegills?! So tasty, so plentiful. I also have some stocker rainbows I may flake up. Awesome thread and excited to see more suggestions!

May be a stupid question as I imagine anything would work, but does anyone have any preferred 'catch yourself' species they like to catch, cook, and flake (like canned tuna)? Figued if I could use bluegills or perch, it would sure save me buying cans of tuna. Anyone here do it?

Ha. ^^ .... What does cronzy have to do with this?!

When I forget the clippers, my swiss army scissors, my pliers and my lighter.. i use the edge of a rock.

What? This is an issue for people? I use nail clippers... Been using the same pair for 3 seasons. Always used em on mono. Now I use them on braid. Works fine.

I guess we'd have to ask people who bought such products. Did it , in fact, enhance their success with those techniques? If so , yes marketing, but also evolution.

Twitch, twitch, SMASH I love jerkbaiting for pike (or musky if they are around)

Everything in fishing is a variation of an older tactic. Clothespin spinnerbaits evolved from in-liners. Twitchbaits, jerkbaits, evolved from crankbaits. Texas rigged plastic worms, well thats just a plastic worm on a hook right? "Wacky rigging" .... Did anyone really believe they INVENTED that? I remember when I was a poor kid, we re-hooked the plastic worm in a million different ways, and caught fish, because we couldn't afford more plastic worms. "Flippin jigs" ... Evolved from jigheads. It's an ever changing, ever evolving game.. this does not detract from the effectiveness of the technique.

Send the people of norfolk county to the kawarthas, give them a month they'll wipe out your pike. Nice catch. Looks like a great day with tasty results!

It gives your bait essentially a still, suspended approach. With today's plastics, normal movement gives your bait action. You have basically live bait, right in the fish's face.

It is for WAY more than bass. 75% of my winter steelhead were on dropshots. What a great alternative to float fishing, and very productive. 90% of my spring crappies were on dropshots. I know of no other efficient way to fish deep crappies. Other ways work, but the dropshot eliminated time constraints and hookset issues caused by slip floats. Perch? Try a dropshot with two hooks instead of a pickerel rig then tell me if you ever buy a pickerel rig again. How about smallies? Ever drag tubes, jig spoons, and still cant get a bite? Put a big old Gulp minnow on a dropshot, and try to keep the bass off the line. Grand River smallies inhale dropshots like nothing else in my arsenal. I haven't done it, but I'm sure it would be a whole new world of tactics in a walleye or lake trout fisherman's boat. The tactic is sure old. But as with anything , it has evolved to a far more productive tool than it ever was before.

How do you know pike were 100% the reason for the decline of musky in your lakes? You know I caught a pike in Rice Lake 12 yrs ago. They havent overpopulated it in that time yet. Maybe, pike thrive when lakes change? Lakes just change. I could tell you a whole bunch of lakes I fished before, that USED to be amazing fisheries.. for pike, bass, musky, crappies, perch... Guess what? The well always runs dry. There were no new species introduced to those spots.. just new fishermen. It's easy to immediately blame a scapegoat for the decline of your success... But unless you're a biologist who never leaves the lake, you dont know for sure that pike did anything to your muskies.

No offense, but you wouldnt have bothered typing that if you had tried dropshotting.

I have the same charger. Works and has worked fine for 4 seasons.

This is the kawarthas were talking about. Per capita, they have the smallest muskies on average. Most are in the 30" range. So ... Same size as pike then. So whats the problem? There won't be EASY muskies anymore. Just big ones. 3lb pike or 3lb muskies? What weighs more? 100lbs of bricks, or 100lbs of feathers?

Oh dont worry soon it will be on a microchip implant im sure lol