Pike minnow

Sorry if I offended anybody I have changed the title to Pike minnow. I'm also including a screenshot of the article that I read in the newspaper that also led me to believe that they were an invasive species in the Russian River.

My buddy said it makes a mean clay pot, minus the bones. Tastes better than bass apparently.

You should tell your buddy to keep spots from Shasta and throw Whiskeytown bass back.

My buddy said it makes a mean clay pot, minus the bones. Tastes better than bass apparently.

You should tell your buddy to keep spots from Shasta and throw Whiskeytown bass back.

Should tell that to the guys keeping buckets full of bass at the shore spots soaking live bait that don’t know it’s illegal to use live bait there. Exercises in futility.

My buddy said it makes a mean clay pot, minus the bones. Tastes better than bass apparently.

You should tell your buddy to keep spots from Shasta and throw Whiskeytown bass back.

Should tell that to the guys keeping buckets full of bass at the shore spots soaking live bait that don’t know it’s illegal to use live bait there. Exercises in futility.

Illegal to use live or dead fin fish anyways. But yeah, I did every chance I got - using as much tact as possible to educate why. Except one time while loading the yak and a couple of old drunk guys were loading a Klamath at Whiskey Creek in March and hooting and hollering with a magnum stringer in the 3-6lb. class. What did they use? Minners! Doubt Golden Shiners would ever have a snowballs chance to get a foothold there, but still. The Pikeminnow population is strong at WTown and Upper CC. Used to target them at the falls upstream of French Gulch. And it wasn't just huge spots that would wait to ambush stockers and juvenile kokes at the WC pipe before it blew out. Pulled quite a few 30"+ Pikeminnow from that lake and it's tribs. Seems cyclical there. Some seasons pylons and structure hold more Pikeminnow than bass, some seasons the opposite. And they definitely prey on each other's young, seen it with my own eyes.

Pikeminnow - it's one word, like lingcod.

Yes, they eat salmon and steelhead fry, and that is the main thing that most people talk about and perceive about them.  What's probably more important, on a watershed scale, is that they are so numerous and have so many individuals per size class, that they occupy all of the feeding lanes and hog the available prey food.  When a yearling or 1+ salmonid shows up among dozens or scores or hundreds of pikeminnow, the salmonid is basically run out of town or attacked.  This situation has led to the main stems of the Eel River to be dominated by pikeminnow.  Only recently have government agencies and NGO's been starting to try to figure out how to control them.  I believe they are the number one limiting factor that are keeping salmon and steelhead populations perilously low on the Eel.

I remember when I moved to Willits and a livestock feed store had a pike minnow bounty/contest. It was easy to win because hardly anyone entered anything. I would go walk the traintracks downstream from Dos Rios and fish the deeper holes I came across. This was summertime. Hot. You could hook a fish or two from a hole full of them and then they would quit. I've since read that one in distress gives off a scent that turns all the others off.
Throwing them up on the bank is not enough. I've done that and have observed them flop back into the water 15 minutes later. Persistent little bastards!

caught many a $2 northern pike minnow in the Columbia river system, about 12 years ago.

These fish are voracious feeders. Often times at the net or in the boat, their gullets were stuffed with salmon fry/smolts.
My most productive baits were yellow perch meat strips tipped on jigs and a small Rapala Countdown plug in rainbow trout finish.

There's a Sac trib named Cottonwood Creek which separates Shasta and Tehama counties. It's a fairly special body of water imo due to the fact that it has no significant damming to hinder anadromous fish. This means that Salmonid success is based upon predation and water conditions. Salmon and Steelhead navigate this system and travel a solid 50 miles to utilize the main stem and Beegum Creek, one main trib for sure.

I haven't had the opportunity to slosh around much on the different forks and feeders which come down from primarily the Bally's, but I used to talk around about it quite a bit and old timers always said that salmon and Steelhead were certainly present back in the day on even little feeders like Jerusalem Creek and Eagle Creek around Ono.

As far as predation goes, I really have no idea what to think with Pikeminnow. Doing well on Steelhead with the stream opener always seemed cyclical. Some years you could have a spectacular day on fish to almost 30" and other years you'd be lucky to catch 3. On years where trout and Steelies weren't around you could bag Pikeminnow from dawn till dusk, up and down and everywhere. And when the water warmed up it was Smallmouth City. Come June, you could catch 200 fish a day between Pikeminnow and bass. And of course, the mouth at the Sac is locally known as a spot to stop for Striper all Summer. Spotted Bass at least to 6 pounds are prevalent up about 10 miles from the Sac now too.

I have mixed feelings about killing Pikeminnow due their being native, but I always ripped their gills and left them for terrestrial scavengers. Feels like it should be death to the non-native species even more so to me though. Between native predation and smallies, spots and Striper, how the hell is anything making it's first trip to the Salt? Not to mention global warming and drought years. And of course everything slams anything that looks like a small silvery fish higher up this particular system.

Besides myself fishing and observing the Cottonwood Creek system, I have a good friend who has a family trust section of land that borders the Middle Fork up to the confluence of Beegum Creek. We've talked about Salmon and Steelhead occurrence there a lot while fishing there or hunting. He grew up way out there with no power and Salmon was a large part of his diet growing up. He says that there has been a salmon decline out there his whole life. I have to think that there's a correlation with all these non-native predators gaining ground. But the Pikeminnow have always been there, the others haven't. So I don't know. But I would like to see a special body of water like that studied and maybe have some custom regs put in place concerning non-natives.

]Just a quick reminder that the pike minnow Derby is on this coming Saturday and you can register at Fuller Grove Marina at 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. on the morning of the derby. The Derby will end at 3:00 p.m. the admission for adults will be $20 and kids younger than 16 are free.
If you'd like more information on the derby you can call the General Store at 707-743-2148

Sorry if I offended anybody I have changed the title to Pike minnow.

You have not offended anyone here no worries! I didnt know until recently either!

Interesting tidbit! That changes my whole approach. Here on the south fork eel, like many areas, we got massive rainfall this last winter and saw really high river levels for sustained periods so there were massive changes in the riverbed. Some holes were filled in and some holes were hogged out. Holes that were 25ft deep are now 15ft deep. There were massive shifts in the river sediment. Pertaining to pikes, all of their preferred home got ripped out. I dont know what it is called but it is a fern like bush that serves as the pike rookery. On typical years there are groves of these underwater ferns that house tons of mostly small pike. With the heavy flows this year, I guess they all got ripped out and I am seeing very few pike in my stretch of the river which is usually loaded. Im seeing very few steelhead on dives now since the river has warmed up radically but pike should be loving it. Despite the heavy rainfall this watershed is at typical summer levels since it is such a porous watershed and cant hold much.

Sorry if I offended anybody I have changed the title to Pike minnow.

You have not offended anyone here no worries! I didnt know until recently either!

Meh.

It’s such a small gesture to stop using squawfish.  Some folks are deeply offended by the continued usage of modestly objectionable place names but no one is giving up anything by changing the name of squawfish or negro bar or whatever.  Those place names can rest in the dustbin of history.  Just use the new names.  Or as in the case of the reversion to native names like Patrick’s point being changed to sue-Meg up here, just go with the new yet ancient name.

It costs you nothing.

Bump

Saw that they had a derby last year on the eel River with a $400 prize. If someone that knows more about the program could revive the topic and if it will be held again this year. Thanks in advance 🙂

We used to do a spring opener within my jeep club there, the local consensus was kill em all.
This could be a great get to gether before the heat hits....