Open Water Season Project is Launched
The open water season of the Pike Improvement Project is underway.
May is a vital month for keeping Northern Pike and our goal is to register at least 3000 pike to have a meaningful effect.
We have been working on setting up this project for over a year. We first hoped to be able to donate northern for fish patties for the local food shelf because we knew many people didn’t really want to keep and clean them. Because of food safety control concerns we turned our attention to encouraging people to keep their northern and eat their catch. We have a northern cleaning video on our website and each resort has northern cleaning directions in their fish cleaning house. We are also sharing printed recipes with guests, especially for pickling northern and more on the website. You are right if you have the impression we are targeting smaller northern. We don’t have a problem with creating a trophy northern reputation, which could be a result of our efforts. Northern were accidentally introduced to this lake around the 70’s so we will make the best of it that we can.
Lastly, the food pantry donations are still an important part of our strategy under certain circumstances. The WDNR will be at bigger northern tournaments to take possession of donated northern catch. Max Wolter WDNR Fisheries Biologist says he has 26 volunteers to clean northern. The Chippewa Flowage Area Property Owners Association is donating money to have the fish processed to fish patties for local food shelves, and Whiskey Ridge, the processor is also donating a $1.00 off a pound on these fish. As you can see there is a lot of support from the whole community.
About 500 northern pike were registered during the ice fishing season. We hoped for more, but we thought that was pretty good. Since ice out and through opening weekend 1000 tickets have been collected! We are on our way….thank you open water anglers and resorts for your participation. Can we reach our goal of 10,000 by October?
