HELP Locating the lost 'eyes???

[Jeff]

About 6 years ago we planted about 600 small walleye into a large pond (approx. 30 Acres) with deepest hole being 23.5 feet. This pond does have a few Northerns in it but mostly Bass, Gills, Crapie, and a bunch of Carp. Over the last 2 years I have spent countless hours trying to hook into some of these eyes but have had no luck, only had one follow a spinner bait while Bass fishing it last year. I have tried jigging with minnows, leaches, crawlers and have used harnesses, cranks, spinners. I have even had tip-ups across this pond for the last 2 winters. Nothing I use seems to work! This pond is VERY private with us having the only access to it. Is it possible that these fish have all died off or possibly killed of by the pike? I am able to locate fish with my portable during mid-day resting near or on bottom which makes me think that they are there but I guess it could be the carp?????

Any help with a few tips would be greatly appreciated, I would really like to catch 1 or 2 to see how well they are growing, producing before we plant more! Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for your replies.

[Kroe]

I would bet the pike have taken the walleye as they are voracious feeders. Had a lake close by up here in northern Saskatchewan,Canada that was stocked with Rainbow trout. The water levels rose, the pike got in and cleaned out the trout in no time. These trout were a good size and were gone in no time.

Keep jiggin,
Kroe

[Eyemadman]

I agree with the previous posts that the pike cleaned most of the walleyes out. There may be a " few" but 1 or 2 large pike hammer anything that swims in a pond of that size

[Eyez]

Ditto, A 40 inch northern can mow down a 16 inch walleye in his sleep. The pike had quite a bit of time to finish them off before the eyes would have been big enough not to be dinner.


Eyez

[Neal/CO]

Pike are the culprit. They have totally taken over my favorite trout lake. I use to be able to catch 10-20, 18-24 inch Bows and Cutts a day at Spinney Res. Now they don't even stock trout there. They lost 750,000 fingerlings and sub catchables in two years. Also stocked fish lack the instincts to survive that fist week of shark infested waters. They are like pigeons just sitting there waiting to be eaten.

[Jeff]

I was hoping you all would have something different to say :-)...But i believe you are all correct! Oh well, guess I'll get that Johnson's Silver Minnow shined up if I'm gonna fish that pond this weekend! I guess it's just to bad that we didn't know of the Pike before we planted the 'eyes!

Thanks,

Jeff

[Neal/CO]

Also, if you have a "few" big pike then you also have a bunch of little ones out there also. It's the 10 to 20 inch fish that really cause all kinds of problems. They will find and eat almost every fingerling you stock. In small waters, Tiger Muskies are prefferable. They are sterile and you can controls their numbers and still have some big predators in your pond to control the carp and sunfish numbers.

[Jason]

Jeff,

Can you get hold of an underwater camera somehow? Some of the baitshops in this area (twin cities) rent Aquaviews out for the day. I have the Aquaview Jr. and it works great.

If it was my pond/lake (and I wish it was!), I would try and get rid of those pesky slime bucket northerns. :)

Jason

[Jeff]

Great idea! My Dad's buddy has a aquaview...I'll borrow it in the near future, maybe this weekend! Atleast With that I will be able to see what is actually down there...We are located in Southern MI and the water clarity is excellent! Thanks for the idea....

[Neal/CO]

You guys want to hear something funny? The lake I mentioned earlier, Spinney Res was a gold medal trout water until recently. The Dow has been trying to net pike all summer and move them out, with limited success. They estimate there are 10,000 pike between 16-40 inches swimming there right now, in a 2500 acre lake. They no longer stock trout and they have eaten every sucker in the place. They are now eating bugs, crawfish and each other to survive. Last month the DOW had a 44 incher in the nets and while they were pulling out some smaller pike the big girl ate a 24 inch rainbow while still trapped in the nets, "much to the horror of the regional bioligist in charge of trying to restore Spinney to it's Gold medal status".

[Dave in Mpls]

Neal, are they running into the same problem at 11 Mile, or is it just Spinney Mtn at this point? I used to fish Spinney quite a bit, back in the late 80s. I ran into some humongo pike while trolling around the #####, and figured those poor trout were in for a long ride!!

Regards

[Dave in Mpls]

That #### is supposed to say d a m! Man, I hate that....

[Neal/CO]

They are managing Elevenmile as a lake for both big trout and Pike. The Pike in 11-mile are a lot healthier, for several reasons. There is a large carp population and most small carp get munched, plus somebody illegally introduced Yellow perch into the lake. They also allow ice fishing at 11-mile and alot of Pike get creeled each winter. This all helps keep the Pike population much healthier. The trout population is still depressed
because of the pike, but when you catch them they are big! At Spinney a 35 inch Pike may only weigh
7-8 lbs. All but the biggest Gators are starving.

[Ed]

Can you drain the lake and start over?

[Starfish]

We haven't had problems with pike here (knock on wood), but a local lake, Potholes Reservoir in Washington state, lost most of its trout population over the last few decades to predation by walleyes. But a few years ago a resort operator, the late Rod Mesenberg, started a net pen trout-raising operation that has been an outstanding success, without adversely affecting the walleye fishery. I've been taking my young kids trolling for the trout and they've been having a blast catching trout up to 20", then I get to walleye fish... anyway, you might consider net pens until fish are large enough to survive?