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What has happened to the pike in Frances?


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For years me and my friends have tip-up fished on Frances. Same spot for the last 15 years. Always good numbers of 2-4 pound fish. The last 2-3 years, they are all small and fewer in numbers. What do you think has happened?

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yea idk. my buddy and i fished off a weedline in 12' fow and just caught some sunnies and crappies but no northerns or walleyes and that was all day. Are you even getting the northerns and walleyes out there?

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fished 4 hrs with 4 flags - 15 pops - caught 4 bass and 2 northern that did not go a pound. Bass runnin with the shiners and spittin in the weeds. We like to pickle pike and they are not even big enough for that!

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yea idk what happened there...i guess just wait it out and hopefully they will come back.

My buddy lives in waseca and i live in new prague and i am gunna go down there this weekend and spned the night the whole weekend and we were gunna go for some walleyes and northers! What would be a good lake to do that?

We would probably spend the night too.

We have only tried clear and frances, but we heard a lot about elysian.

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we were also thinking of willow point on tetonka because thats such a quick drop there. that might be some good structure for walleyes.

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I noticed quite a few skinny northerns out there this past summer while guiding. Hard to say what has happened but my first guess would be lack of forage.

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Yeah T.O. you are right, the 2 I caught were very thin, not very healthy looking fish. The bass however, were thick healthy fish.

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i do agree with you on the bass nice and thick i got one in 3 hrs of fishing. the northern has vanished from the lake i usully get pike between 23 to 28" but not this time. and it was loaded with them too. many people have said it yesterday its a dead sea.

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Used to get 4-5 lbs pike on Duck and they too have gone away. I will have to start experimenting with different lakes for pike. I did however find a lake that nobody fishes and we catch 4-5lb largemouth, just huge. We don't eat um but they are fun to catch!

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Sounds like you found a great lake Jasper. That is what one gets for the hard work of searching for fish in different locations.

Nice job. cool.gif

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Its so nice to get away from the crowds for once. The lab can run around and I dont have to worry about her!

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Its too bad people in this state arent as gung ho about pike slots as they are on walleye slots. I personally love catching nice pike but its so hard too get away from 16" pike on so many lakes. When i started going too Winnie with my wifes family we watched stringers of 7-10 lb pike going too the cleaning house. That was only about 7 years ago. Now these people at the resort complain that they can't find any fish over 5 lbs anymore. Its not rocket science, but its over these peoples heads on why they dont catch them anymore. Thats just the week we are up there and thats just 1 resort.

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when i fished on winnie reg on pike are changing soon i think. used to be, 30" one over i took home one over 30" and 2 under 30" i seen to many huge one taken. but look whats going around the lakes the tribal netting we found tons of dead pike in the woods all over.

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Last year, actually in Feb. 07, so not quite a year, I caught 5 5+pound pike(the biggest being 6.5) in less than 30 mins. It was great. My wife was along and being 7 months pregnant I was trying to make it "nice and relaxing for her"!!!!!! confused.gif Is there such a thing, in this enviorment, for a woman? A pregnant one at that? Why yes there is.... cool.gif It's called a underwater camera!! I had set her up in the shanty, jigging for whatever with a ratso and waxie. I dropped the camera down the hole next to the one she was fishing hoping it would amuse her a bit. I leave the shanty to pound holes for crappie time and within 5 mikes I hear her yelling with more enthusiasm than our wedding night shocked.gif I ran to the shanty, look at the camera screen and there are 2 pikers just hanging out staring/laughing at the ratso/waxie set up. So I dropped down a swedish zit with a fat head and proceeded to whack lots of pike. It was a strange deal, 3 right in a row between 5 and 6 pounds. This summer trolling right off C. point I bet I caught 15 to 20 pike in 2 hours. Unfortuanetly this time the biggest was maybe 2 pounds. Merry Christmas and good luck!!!!!! grin.gif

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Sorry, I was having so much fun telling my story I forgot my original point... So here it is, there are some really nice pike in the lake. cool.gif Trust me, all you have to do is look at the size and health of the LM bass etc. There is plenty of forage in the lake to sustain a healthy pike population. The etc. is in ref. to some really nice crappies and 'eyes I caught in the lake last winter.

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Depending on the quality and type of forage base in Frances, I still think that would have something do with what I saw out there last summer a handful of times. Perhaps there is too much competition for the food that is available, the northerns got behind the 8-ball and now they're going backward.

What are the different species eating?

There's definitely something going on because even if there is "nice" pike in the lake, it's not like it used to be. During recent guide trips, we went through at least 75 northerns and I didn't see one over 3#. This is not normal.

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