The Outdoors

By Scott Rall, Outdoors Columnist

I started out the new year with a spearing trip to northeast South Dakota. I was looking to do a little pike spearing and southern Minnesota is not the greatest place to do that. For one, we only have a few lakes that have a decent pike population and even fewer lakes that have water clear enough to make spearing enjoyable. Some of the only decent pike lakes had frozen out two years ago and even with pike stocking, which is done infrequently in my area, none of the fish would have grown large enough to be legal.

In the Minnesota south zone, the pike limit is two fish per day with a minimum length limit of 24 inches. In other areas of Minnesota there is a nine fish limit per day with the majority of them required to be pretty small. Northern Minnesota lakes tend to have large numbers of pike and this high population results in very slow growth rates. By harvesting lots of smaller pike the ones that remain will be able to grow faster into a size range most spear hunters prefer.

Depending on exactly where you are at, you are allowed a few larger fish and you are also allowed what I call an “oops” fish. An oops fish is one that falls outside of the required size ranges and having one of these fish in your possession does not result in a citation by a conservation officer. Down south, where I live, there is no such forgiveness fish. If you have a fish that is below the minimum size requirement and you choose to keep that fish, you can be written a ticket. How do you measure a 24-inch pike in 6 feet of water?

So, what happens to those “don’t meet the requirements” fish? If you want to be safe you just shove it down the hole and make a buffet for the snapping turtles. I for one would not do this. Instead of wasting that fish, I would pay the fine if I was to be checked and cited.

In South Dakota where we were, the limit is 9 fish per day and there are no size limits both on the minimum and maximum side of the tape measure. This is very attractive to pike spear fishermen or women. You get to keep lots of fish and opportunities abound if you know where to look. The issue is that when it comes to SE South Dakota I really don’t know where to look. Sure, there are the big lakes we can all find, but there were over 1,500 people on that lake that day last season when I went there.

Having 40 side-by-sides and 4-wheelers along with about 100 trucks and cars racing by is not really my idea of a relaxing day on the lake. I was and am trying to find some of those out-of-the-way shallow lakes or sloughs where large pike abound, but either small lake size or difficulty in accessing them keeps the majority of the competition from crowding me out.

We hired a guide for a few days and did not have any luck at all. I won’t blame this one on the guide because fishing can change day to day, but when we only saw two fish in 10 hours on the first day. I figured they would move us to a different spot. Because ice conditions were deteriorating due to warm temperatures, all of the guide’s other spear houses were already on the shore waiting for better ice. I can also understand that.

We spent the second day in the same shack and never even saw a pike in that 10-hour sit. We did manage in the drought to spear a few carp in the 15–20-pound range. Not the target species we were after. So, we tried the old “get to know the locals” tactic and bought a few beers in some of the local watering holes. We came up empty there too because all the die-hard ice anglers we talked to were all chasing walleyes or perch and couldn’t care less about a northern pike or where they might be hiding. We always asked about water clarity because you cannot spear a pike if you can’t see them, but most had no idea about water clarity because they just drilled a hole and dropped their fish electronic down the hole to see if there were any fish in the area.

The trip was still fun as my fishing partner and I ended up in the local Legion club where we bought raffle tickets for every charity that was offering one for sale. We met some great folks at this spot and when I drove back there 15 minutes later to retrieve the jacket that I had left, the local was on his way to drop it off at the Elks Lodge because we told them we were headed there for the big Saturday night prime rib special. This could only happen in South Dakota.

The weather was totally awesome. I sat outside on the ice in 45 degrees and smoked some cherry tobacco in a pipe just like my grandpa used to use. The fishing truly sucked compared to what we had hoped for, but I will try again in this neck of the woods, because there is awesome opportunity for some numbers and big fish, but also because the people in this area are my kind of folks.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

If you have any questions, reach out to me at scottarall@gmail.com.