Passaic River Pike

[Suntzu]

I have been lurking for years and am active on other boards as some may know.
I do not freshwater fish a great deal, most salt, but I am enchanted with fishing the passaic river and have walked nearly the entire stretch from chatham through paterson over the years. I have caught more than 200 pike this year. I don't post pictures as I do not want to encourage others or endanger the fish, but will when I catch the next NJ record and I know where she lives :)

I chose to post now as this year has been troubling to me. I have seen more dead pike than in all other years combined. I have also seen a real drop off in fishing certain stretches due to fishing pressure and a poor approach to catching and releasing these fish.

The pike fishery on the passaic is a resource that needs to be cherished and preserved. It is in many respects a miracle, to have this fishery available and accessible to us, but it is fragile and can be ruined quickly. I am not in a position to lecture anyone but allow me to make a few suggestions to those who target these fish, and those who plan to:

- do not use treble hooks. The mortality rate with pike using trebles has to be very high. Avoid inline spinners and plugs, and if you must use them swap out the treble for a single hook. A nick in a gill means a dead fish. You may miss an occasional fish but who cares, the ones you catch will live. Spinner baits are best

- use braid and a heavy flouro leader. Ultra light rods are fine but use appropriate tackle. Nothing worse than hooking a nice fish and having it break you off, you lose an expensive lure and the poor pike suffers

- before you cast, make sure you are in a place where you can land a fish. From the yak no issue, from shore if you are standing 5 feet above the water with an ultra light rod and 10lb mono you cannot swing a fish up; it breaks off, you loose tackle and the pike suffers. Do not bother casting no matter how fishy it looks if you are in a place where you cannot land a fish.

- pike are crazy. They go ballastic when out of the water. Prepare for that. try to release the fish without having to take it out of the water. If you have to take it out of the water come prepared with a piece of plastic to lay it on so it does not scrape off it slime or get caked in mud and grass. Take a picture this way if you need fish porn, do not put your fingers in the fishes gills, dead fish. Do not allow the fish to beat itself senseless on the bank, dead fish. Do put in the time and effort to revive the fish before its released. Pike exhaust themselves quickly, if you just toss them back they often just sink to the bottom. Take a couple of minutes to properly revive the fish.

- do not go out there without the right tools. Long needle nose, jaw expanders are a must. To not have these things with you at all times is just irresponsible

Despite the many pictures on this site it is not so easy to regularly catch large pike. Although pike are not difficult to catch, they are very aggressive, they can be difficult to find. It takes time to find where they are, you have to cover a lot of miles but you will find in time that the joy is in finding them, not catching them. They are not the greatest fighters. having a big pike just explode on a buzzbait is almost as exciting as catching one. Have that mindset in your approach and you will enjoy your time on teh river much more, and be more inclined to take responsible approaches

This is an amazing fishery and I am eternally grateful for NJFG&W for creating it. It is up to us to protect it by teaching folks the right way to approach it, it is completely different than trout, bass, or other fishing, and we need to committ to collectively apply peer pressure when wrong approaches are taken both on the river and this board.

Thanks for listening and let's enjoy AND protect this very special resource.

[Almaink]

Great post! It's a shame they don't make people take a test to get a fishing license like they do for hunting. I'd say at lest half of the people I see with lines in the water, have no clue what they are doing.

[stevejordan]

round of applause

[Skunk City]

Very quality first post. I have been working on a "Pike Fishing/Handling 101" tutorial for the past few weeks with pictures. I also have seen way too many guys posting pics of fish that have rolled around in the dirt, held by the jaw with pliers, guys using too light of line with no leader, damaged fish, and unfortunately dead fish. I should have it done within the next week, hope Andy can sticky it for a bit.

[justin1982]

Until this year, I never fished for pike ( thanks to this board!). I was pretty clueless but a quick google search and I learned proper handling. I'm no expert but I think I've done a pretty good job of keeping them alive to fight another day. It's a shame people can't take 5 min out of their days to educate themselves.

[mondofish]

Great post

[zhitoman]

Very quality first post. I have been working on a "Pike Fishing/Handling 101" tutorial for the past few weeks with pictures. I also have seen way too many guys posting pics of fish that have rolled around in the dirt, held by the jaw with pliers, guys using too light of line with no leader, damaged fish, and unfortunately dead fish. I should have it done within the next week, hope Andy can sticky it for a bit.

It breaks my heart when I see pictures guys post here.

[msgdan]

Great post !! One thing that I would like to add is the use of lip grippers. About 8 years ago, when I started pike fishing, I used a lip gripper and when the fish started going crazy and spinning, his lower jaw was nearly torn off. Needless to say, I have never used one since.

Danny V

[saxmatt]

Good post. Maybe I'll put up a similar post about how to handle pike and muskie while ice fishing once the season starts. I see lots of people mistreating fish on the ice. As far as lip grippers go, only use lip grippers with a spinning head like a boga grip. If the lip gripper doesn't spin the fish can hurt themselves when they start to spin like Dan said. I do recommend a boga for ice fishing. A pikes eyes and gills can freeze almost instantly on cold windy days and the boga is great for keeping them in the hole while unhooking them.

[buzzbaiter]

Ice guys throw pickerel all over the ice and discard them like garbage. Those same pickerel are often the only saving grace on a nice summer day when bass aren't biting. Treat them with a little TLC please.

Best thing about the passaic pike is that they are restocked every year. I wish they could stock bass in there every year!

[Esox Luciano]

Good post & you make some good points as well. However, these fish aren't newborns, I've caught some with scars on scars. Proper handling & quik rease is ALWAYS important! I've actually witnessed an acquired fisherman we know break a few of the codes of conduct that @suntzu stated. Didn't even see me but I was there. Definitely gotta get that pike tutorial going & circulate it, to every1!

Best thing about the passaic pike is that they are restocked every year. I wish they could stock bass in there every year!
There's actually more bass than the past few years. Especially big largemouths rollin through! They're just hard to get to from your living room, Aahaahaaa!

[UglyStick]

Great post, I appreciate you taking the time to write it as this topic is one of my major pet peeves - I also encourage Rob and Matt to make similar educational posts as well.

For a variety of reasons I rarely post any of my catches anymore but I'm still out there several times a week and frequently see fisherman mishandling fish and especially using inappropriate tackle for large and/or toothy fish. In way too many pictures I see handling where the fish will probably live but is being caused undue stress for no reason except to get a picture. I mainly fish alone and rarely take pictures of the muskies I catch just for this reason.

The funny part is that many of the people who read this thread and are guilty of mishandling don't even realize it...

[Eskimo]

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http://www.todoparaminegocio.com/proveedores/logos/519.jpg

Quality post Suntzu.

The Passaic is an interesting fishery because it's an urban fishery. The harvest of pike and bass is reduced in the Passaic due to some anglers' concerns about the pollutants in the water. So the primary cause of death for big fish is post-release mortality.

Some anglers are unnecessarily afraid of the pike's teeth. Over the years I've seen some awful ways of dealing with it. These things include:

people just yanking their lures straight out of the fish's mouth
a spring-loaded jaw spreader stuck in a small pike that opened his mouth almost 180 degrees.

And I don't even fish the Passaic that often.

Freshwater fish in New Jersey is a resource being shared by more than 150,000 anglers in the most crowded state in the nation.


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[dakota560]

Suntzu,

Good to see someone who is more concerned with the conservation of a resource than tapping into it. We should all at least be conscientious of the points made and prepare for each trip accordingly. It's the same in salt water or fresh and for the many species we fish for. Think about what your doing and make sure you have the necessary tools with you to release a fish safely back into their environment. Probably the most important point of the many great points made is lose the treble hooks, they are not necessary and if a trophy fish breaks off with single or even worse multiple treble hooks stuck in it's mouth it's a death sentence which can be completely avoided. Especially with pike these fish are very territorial and once you find them there's a good chance they'll remain in the same general vicinity. I'd rather miss a fish a half dozen times knowing I'm going to have another chance at it as opposed to risk breaking him off on one hit and knowing the fish isn't going to get a second chance because he has a mouth full of treble hooks and won't be able to feed anymore. It takes no time to switch out hooks and it's probably the one thing everyone can do right away to have an immediate impact based on Suntzu's post. The only other comment I'd like to reinforce is keep your fingers out of the fishes gills! All too often you see pictures with people holding fish with their fingers completely inside the gill plates or holding it with one hand and the entire weight of the fish being held by it's gills and head. Fish won't survive that type of handling. Use two hands, one under the belly and one at the tail if you need to take a picture. Stay away from the gills all together. You wouldn't want someone sticking their hands in your mouth or down your throat, a fish can't tolerate that stress on their gills. If their gills are damaged, the fish will not survive. Imagine someone grabbing you by the throat and holding you off the ground for a few minutes. Your head would feel like it was going to explode and you'd probably be dead in 15 seconds. It's no different with a fish. Stay away from their gills, it's a death sentence.

The only thing better than catching a trophy of a lifetime is to see her swim away. Just remember every time you catch a big fish, if the people who hooked that fish before you didn't handle it properly, you would have never had your chance.

Suntzu, good job on creating awareness and I'm sure this thread will have a positive impact on maintaining a great fishery.

Dakota

[saxmatt]

I agree about keeping your fingers out of the gills, but grabbing a pike by the gill plate while putting your other hand under the belly to support the weight of the fish is fine. I prefer grabbing big pike by the gill plate especially through the ice because I feel like I have more control over the fish and it is less likely to start thrashing around and damage itself on the ice, rocks, boat or whatever other hard surfaces I might be around. 2 hands under the belly is good too but you don't have as much control over the fish. Either way it's good to kneel down and keep the fish low to the ground in case it goes bananas and flies out of your hands.

[NorthJerzyG]

I remember reading in In-fisherman it's better to lift them from the gill plate than grabbing them behind the head because you are removing less protective slime that way. As long as you only hold them vertically for a few seconds they are fine but the body weight, especially on larger fish, should be supported. Also, keep them, and other fish off the floor of a carpeted boat. That caused more fish fatalities during the study than other forms of mishandling.

Last, yes, their gills are fragile. However, gently sliding your hand into the gill plate and possibly brushing up against the gills won't damage them. It's damaged gills that kill the fish, not just slightly touching the gills..........

[catfishonthelake]

I hate to say that I am not the least bit surprised at the number of dead pike you're seeing. I've been saying for a long time to watch what happens to this fishery in 5 years. Without getting into the whole spot burning/secret spot ordeal, when you give a body of water that much publicity you are going to attract that many more anglers, a lot of whom lack experience of proper equipment and fish handling. I can't tell you how many posts I've seen up here of people saying "trying to catch my first Passaic River pike." And tons of reports letting inexperienced anglers know it's an easy target. I mainly target muskies now and am happy I stopped fishing the Passaic before it turned into a zoo. I certainly don't fish any "secret spots," but you sure as hell won't see my reports up here letting people know that I'm catching fish.

And the proper way to land and handle a big Esox is to have a proper net to keep it in the water while it's being unhooked, hold it firmly by its gill plate with one hand without touching its rakers and to support the stomach closer to the tail with the other hand, holding it horizontally, never vertically.

Tight lines to you guys and remember that conservation is the only way our NJ fisheries can survive. Our friends in Hackettstown can only do so much.

[saxmatt]

Last, yes, their gills are fragile. However, gently sliding your hand into the gill plate and possibly brushing up against the gills won't damage them. It's damaged gills that kill the fish, not just slightly touching the gills..........

True, pike are heartier than some people think. I've caught pike with all kinds of battle wounds, including a fat healthy 36" fish that had 2 of its gills completely severed and hanging out of the gill plate. Imagine how much blood she lost when the injury occurred and she survived. That being said, if you are catch and release fishing one of your goals should be to get the fish back in the water with as little damage and stress as possible.

[buzzbaiter]

Its hard to ruin a fishery when it gets ~40,000 new pike each year. Pike fishing is like any other fishing. Your going to have good days and you going to have bad days. I'm certainly not going to throw my hands up and say "its ruined" if I have a few slow days. I had a 40+ day about a month ago(32 were fresh stockies - <12"). Got 17 today. Most trips I only land one or two. Its just the nature of the beast and good timing(or bad)


Last, yes, their gills are fragile. However, gently sliding your hand into the gill plate and possibly brushing up against the gills won't damage them. It's damaged gills that kill the fish, not just slightly touching the gills..........

Yep. In my case i'm holding inside the gill cover but below the gills so I'm grabbing the body not the gills. And there is no protective slime to rub off on the inside by doing this. Gills are fine as long as you don't perforate them. Best case scenario and what I prefer - if time and space allow - is remove the hook(s) and just hold the fish in the water lengthwise and hope it doesn't get away. Only issue is some pike are too long to able to hold them and get a full side shot at the same time.

[Suntzu]

Thank you for the positive feedback on my first post. I think most fisherman want to do the right thing and either need to be educated on what that is, or peer pressured into accepting that with the right to exploit such a unique fishery comes the responsibility to protect and preserve it and we should applaud people here for doing so at least as much as we do when they post a picture of a big pike
Buzz baiter with sincere respect the fishery has fallen off considerably from a few years ago with this year's pressure twice that of last. Absent education and good practices in 5 years in will be hurting. Most of those pencils never make it to 30" they either get eaten by other pike (escapees carry the scars) herons/cormorants or are killed when they slam an inline spinner with trebles. I fished the P 67 days this year, numbers fine but quality fish in spots the held such in the past way down, other spots had them, spots where I have never seen another human being until this year. We just all need to be smart

I want everyone to fully enjoy this resource as it's magical. If everyone does so responsibly and selflessly, we and all those that come after us will have an urban jungle river system with a large apex predator to enjoy for generations; and perhaps F&G considers introducing pike further upstream in the passaic, in other rivers like the Rahway that are plagued with a carp problem

[buzzbaiter]

They'll never stock above Madison/Chatham areas since its trout stocked. Pike do get upstream as far as Great Swamp/Lord Sterling Park but very few and that's the way NJDFGW likes it. They gotta be careful where they put them because they can be a nuisance if they take hold.

[UglyStick]

And the proper way to land and handle a big Esox is to have a proper net to keep it in the water while it's being unhooked, hold it firmly by its gill plate with one hand without touching its rakers and to support the stomach closer to the tail with the other hand, holding it horizontally, never vertically.

Tight lines to you guys and remember that conservation is the only way our NJ fisheries can survive. Our friends in Hackettstown can only do so much.

X 2 ...... Mark nailed it here on both technique and promoting conservation. I'll also use this lead in to add an always big thanks to Craig and the men and women at the hatchery who work for extremely modest wages to raise and stock the fish that bring us soooo much enjoyment - thanks again to these folks...

[catfishonthelake]

Here's a demo of that hold. ;)
https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/10325248_10204508579860747_3539138842322762777_n.j pg?oh=d48216962da6d77013209e5003566547&oe=5494654D&__gda__=1418773042_1509e731345c5f4e8ea55cf40d95720 1

[saxmatt]

Mark, can you post GPS coordinates to the spot where you caught that fish?

[catfishonthelake]

Lol. Yeah I gotta dig 'em up. Only reason i put this one up is because people can spend all day inspecting the background and not find the spot. Unless they're in Detroit.

[saxmatt]

I prefer the ice background. People won't be able to tell which lake in Saskatchewan I caught this.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-9/s720x720/1530491_10101675141988911_43090868_n.jpg?oh=240848 e7c06e4824b26ca58918b6079e&oe=54CB4844&__gda__=1418963725_a6ebcb816e25b44163ba7e2f535583e d

[catfishonthelake]

Ha ha. Yes indeed.

[Oliver10]

I am a long time reader. I never post. I mainly fly-fish. I will fish anyway that I can though. I saw the original posters post and was impressed and felt like it sums up the way I feel about a lot of fishing. I catch and properly release 95% of what I catch. If it is mortally wounded I am eating it.

I don't understand why so many people are so ignorant about the fragility of most fish and that letting them flop around in the mud, dust, leaves or who know what else just shows a total disrespect for your quarry. If people who hunted came up to their wounded prey and left it suffer while they pissed around taking pictures, finding the right tool or whatever else, fellow hunters would see red.

For whatever reason fish don't get many people as incensed.

Here is how fishing should work.

Catch fish.

Decide instantly if it is legal and if you will be eating it.

If yes to both. Kill it humanely.

If no quickly and carefully release it giving it the best chance of survival.

There should be no in-between.

If you go fishing you should have the proper tools to release the fish you are going to catch. Anything else is irresponsible. Even if you plan on eating your catch nobody is assured of only catching keeper sized fish 100% of the time. There will be a need to release fish.

While I don't think that there are any secret spots in NJ. Anybody with Google maps and time can find where to fish. I do think that finding the spots is half the fun. I have fly fished the Passaic for pike a few times. I have not hooked up. I have do have to say that this year there are more people than ever out there. Most have no licenses and many don't know a thing about the rules or proper fish handling. I think as this fishery gets more well known it is going to decline. The river is urban and it flows past a lot of people who for the most part believed it was a dead gross river. As word spreads that fish live there they will be harassed until depletion.

I would like to see somebody post a good tutorial on how to safely and humanly release by-caught turtles. I have never caught one and am glad it has never happened. I see a lot being poorly treated though.

[NorthJerzyG]

Yup, the river is Def overfished and all the good fish have come and gone. No point in wasting a trip when there are far better fisheries nearby..........:p

[Suntzu]

There are parts of the river that are oversfished, parts not. To me its about preserving and protecting what we have and helping it grow through a combination of providing education and information on this site, characterizing this fishery as really something unique and special, and bringing peer pressure here and on the river appluading doing the right thing, and chastizing doing the wrong thing.

I set the post up in a way that is is found quickly when a google search is done.

This weekend will be my last on the Passaic as I will move on to the surf for the rest of the year. Leaves already getting bad. I may even post a report ;)