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I was flipping through the Braggin' Board on the Ottawa Sun website, and stumbled on this....

I don't know if this is anybody here, but this is definitely not a pike. And it doesn't look like it went back in the water.

lapointeric wrote:I was flipping through the Braggin' Board on the Ottawa Sun website, and stumbled on this....

I don't know if this is anybody here, but this is definitely not a pike. And it doesn't look like it went back in the water.

How is that definitely not a Pike?

Bummer, one less ski that could have grown bigger. That is average size for that part of the Ottawa IMHO.

Spezza_Fan wrote: How is that definitely not a Pike?

Pike has no tattoos.

Regardless of the species, I wonder when he caught it? Neither one is in season yet for 2010, here in Ontario nor in Quebec.

Spezza_Fan wrote:

lapointeric wrote:I was flipping through the Braggin' Board on the Ottawa Sun website, and stumbled on this....

I don't know if this is anybody here, but this is definitely not a pike. And it doesn't look like it went back in the water.

How is that definitely not a Pike?

look at the fish man, its a musky 100%. I hope it wasn't caught this year . It needs to be 54 inches to keep on the ottawa and that fish is no where near that, and 44 inches to keep on the rideau and that one would be close. However neither body of water is open to musky right now so shame on this puppet.

Spezza_Fan wrote:
How is that definitely not a Pike?

Please read up on the differences:

http://www.fishingfury.com/20090521/muskie-vs-pike/

does n e one even know if it was this year, or last year, or 10 years ago?

kerplunker wrote:does n e one even know if it was this year, or last year, or 10 years ago?

Either way that fish was most likely suppossed to go back.......

kerplunker wrote:does n e one even know if it was this year, or last year, or 10 years ago?

Not the point. The point is, if you're smart enough to put a hook on a line, then you should be smart enough to know what you might be catching.

If you bother to browse the photos posted on the Braggin' Board you'll notice that most are not recent pictures. Some actually look to be at least 20 years old. Since there is not date attached to the photo, the only thing people can assume is that he confused a muskie for a pike.

lapointeric wrote:

kerplunker wrote:does n e one even know if it was this year, or last year, or 10 years ago?

Not the point. The point is, if you're smart enough to put a hook on a line, then you should be smart enough to know what you might be catching.

The point is...........Get all the facts before you judge. How do you know it wasn't the editor that made the mistake.

I'm sure we all remember the character assault fordson took in here at the hands of some short-fused, self righteous, self-appointed know-it all musky specialist over a reporting mistake the Ottawa paper made in it's article about fordson's fish.

DS

lapointeric wrote:...The point is, if you're smart enough to put a hook on a line, then you should be smart enough to know what you might be catching.

But seriously, how smart DO you need to be to put a hook on a line?
To do it "legally" - apparently if you know how to spell your name, you're good to go!
I was actually discussing this a few weeks ago with my 11 year old - who was wondering how old she needed to be to get a license, and how hard the test was. I laughed at first, but it got me thinking...
Why DON'T you need to complete a test to get a fishing license. You need to pass a test for any other kind of license I can think of. What's different about fishing? I'm not saying I support the idea - but would I be opposed to taking a test to get my fishing license? No sir.
My point is, how can the ministry expect people to know the regs when the only things they're checking prior to issuing a license, is their residency and their age?

Using the pike/musky example - for a fish with such different regulations, they share a lot in appearances. How do you expect someone that's never seen a musky before (or either for that matter) to be able to distinguish the difference between the two. I run in to people all the time that haven't a clue what the differences are between SM and LM bass... the differences, in my opinion, much more obvious than pike vs. musky.

Back to my original point - there are a lot of ignorant fishermen out there, and ignorance breeds ignorance (or at least I think that's how the expression goes). I thought I was a pretty knowledgeable, conservation minded fisherman before I stumbled across this forum. I was, but man did I have a lot to learn. Most importantly, I learned the importance of passing on ACCURATE information.

Okay... I'm done my rant.
Sorry for hijacking - thanks for reading.