Blue Pike Fact Or Fiction

The mysterious Blue Pike. I have never seen one. I have never heard of someone in my generation catching one. Many people say they never existed. All one has to do is ask the experts, one of the Last Fishermen. I clearly recall one spring morning as I sat down to fish with one of my Old Timer buddies. Cold, crisp morning. Early April in Erie. On the wall of Liberty Pier. I was caught up in a very interesting conversation. The topic- Blue Pike. My "buddy" gave me a real life account of the species. He told me that Lake Erie was littered with them. How he, and countless other Erie anglers would head out in the lake to chase them. Similar to those after the now plentiful Yellow Perch. He recalled that catching them was simple, and they were quite plentiful. And mighty tasty too. Basically would anker down and jig for them. A jig tipped with a shiner bouncing off the bottom. One after another would be reeled in. Also one could bottom bounce by drifting to cover more area. They were all over the lake, and aggressive biters. Not huge like the Walleye, but toothy critters with a nice fillet for the skillet. He told me they had a nice chunk of meat that was battered and thrown in hot oil in a cast iron skillet. The famous Griswold types made in Erie were used. But something very bad happened. Party boats loaded with anglers chased them. He said many large head boats were common. Similar to the two operations now used in Erie to catch yellow perch. The Edward John and The Victory. He remembers people lining up to jump on board even at night to catch these Blue Pike. The true demise of the population came from the commercial fishermen. They used large and numerous nets to fill boats full. In those days, regulations and limits were not set as they are now and the fish became over harvested. Because the fish would stay in tight schools, netting was very lucrative and many people chased them up and down the shoreline. Eventually the fish became harder to locate until the population became extensively depleted. "A, sad, sad, day" he recalls when no more fish were to be found. But he insists they were real. And fishing for them was a true treasure. What a wonder it would be to have a population once again in our Great Lakes. What are the chances that somehow the species could be alive in the depths of our lake? Maybe someday, with the help of science and conservation, that the Blue Pike gene could be regenerated and reintroduced in the waters of Lake Erie. I hope others share this wish and would put forth time and energy to find a solution in getting the wonderful, mysterious species back on the list. I believe in them. I believe that we could have a population for our future. Maybe someday, I will be able to chase the mighty Blue Pike as my Old Timer buddies once did.