# Blue pike back in Erie?



## Lawman60 (May 17, 2010)

I just got a report that a blue pike was caught off of the harbor in Conneaut. The ODNR and Fish and Game are checking it out. Will keep posted.


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## Jigging Jim (Apr 3, 2010)

Cool - Thanks!


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## justin (Oct 26, 2005)

Is there an article in the news or somewhere on the internet, or did you hear it word of mouth?


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## LGF (Aug 6, 2010)

There are occasional reports of blue walleye being caught from waters in the Great Lakes Basin. This is because many yellow walleye populations also contain a colour variant with a bluish colour. The actual blue walleye, however, was said to be distinguishable from the yellow walleye by various meristics and morphometrics which the blue colour variant of the yellow walleye seems not to share.

To date, none of the bluish-coloured walleyes recently captured has been shown to be a blue walleye, despite the fact that at least one organization in the US is offering a reward for the successful capture of a blue walleye specimen


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## Lawman60 (May 17, 2010)

Justin,
I grew up in Conneaut and have a lot of kin that still live there. This said, the report came from a family member. But it is true that the ODNR and Fish & Game took the fish, all 11 inches of it, for testing. I wish now I would have wated to hear for sure before I posted, but I was so excited I had to share. I've also seen walleye that were slate gray or bluish in color while fishing Lake Simard in Qubec. My cousin that reported this to me is retired from the state and now works part time opening the lift bridge over the Ashtabula River. He's a VERY reliable source. As to this fish actually being a blue pike is yet to be seen, but it sure would be great news!


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## Redheads (Jun 9, 2008)

Lawman60 said:


> Justin,
> I grew up in Conneaut and have a lot of kin that still live there. This said, the report came from a family member. But it is true that the ODNR and Fish & Game took the fish, all 11 inches of it, for testing. I wish now I would have wated to hear for sure before I posted, but I was so excited I had to share. I've also seen walleye that were slate gray or bluish in color while fishing Lake Simard in Qubec. My cousin that reported this to me is retired from the state and now works part time opening the lift bridge over the Ashtabula River. He's a VERY reliable source. As to this fish actually being a blue pike is yet to be seen, but it sure would be great news!


Sure hope it is a blue pike..If not im sure a ticket for keeping a 11 inch walleye is in his future.


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## Flashball (Aug 26, 2009)

http://www.outdoorsniagara.com/bluepikeindex.htm


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## Old Dawg (Aug 11, 2010)

Long time reader, first time poster. This Blue Pike thread brought back so many memories of catching Blue Pike on Erie I just had to comment. Back in the late 40's and early 50's my dad, some cousins, and I used to fish for Blue Pike out of Erie Pa. on Headboats at night. It was easy for 4 or 5 of us to catch 150 to 200 or more a night. In those days there were no creel limits and you could take all you wanted and no one knew anything about fish management. In my opinion the pollution that hit the lake in the late 50's and 60's, no creel limits, being a great food fish, the market demand and commercial fishing that was going on all over the lake for Blue Pike is what caused it to disappear and sadly I don't think Erie will ever see them again. 

I have some pictures around here of mega stringers that I will post as soon as I find them.


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## creekcrawler (Oct 5, 2004)

Set it straight, the blue pike died off because of habitat and breeding ground destruction. Overfishing and commercial fishing weren't responsible.


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## Old Dawg (Aug 11, 2010)

I'm not one to argue, but I would like to know what destoyed the Blue Pikes habitat and breeding grounds, and why you say that overfishing and commercial fishing had nothing to do with their disappearance from the lake.


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## creekcrawler (Oct 5, 2004)

> blue pike probably went extinct from a variety of factors including habitat degradation, pollution, and overfishing.


WE destroyed them.

Guess it was all three.

Lotsa info here -
http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/discuss/index.php?topic=515.0
http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/discuss/index.php?topic=935.0


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## creekcrawler (Oct 5, 2004)

Fish wrapper here -


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## Shortdrift (Apr 5, 2004)

I know a lot of the blues were taken by local fishermen as that was a food staple back in the 30's and 40's but I also remember how heavily the fish were netted commercially. Unlike the walleye that rebounded when the gill nets and walleye netting were outlawed, the Blues never came back. Maybe they were more prone to be affected by the pollutants than the walleye. I remember dad renting a boat at Gordon Park and rowing out at night with a lantern and some minnows and always catching a good number of fish.


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## Flashball (Aug 26, 2009)

Link to learning about the Great Lakes

http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/atlas/index.html

Pretty much every FACTOR that can cause the extinction of a species(subspecies) are listed. Combine many of them and you get a near perfect storm. The over-harvesting both commercial and sport appears to have been the final blow delivered. Seems like the great catches were of the remaining crop as reproduction was ceasing?

Did the experts see it coming back then? One would think that if they had, arrangements would have been made for offsite breeding in hatcheries and reintroduction later on??

Although we have all read the differences in color, eye size, fin markings, the biologists have stated the DNA between a walleye and a blue pike are virtually identical.

****
"The blue pike (Stizostedion vitreum glaucum) was abundant in the commercial fishery of the Great Lakes. It was historically found in Lakes Erie and Ontario, and in the Niagara River. ~ 1915, population levels began a cycle of extreme fluctuation caused by over-fishing, leading to the eventual collapse in 1958. The FWS listed the pike as endangered under the ESCA in 1970. *suggesting that introgressive hybridization with walleye *may have caused the final disappearance of the stock. A survey by the Blue Pike Recovery Team in 1977 found no individuals. In 1983, the EWS declared the blue pike extinct and removed it from the endangered species list (48 FR 39942)."

http://ncseonline.org/nle/crsreports/biodiversity/biodv-18.cfm#Blue pike

****

Q: Why would the Blue Pike be forced into hybridization, all of a sudden?

http://eias.home.comcast.net/~eias/Documents/Blue_Pike_Identification-Restoration.pdf

From the Ohio Sea Grant(2007):

"Yes, the blue walleye subspecies was found only in Lake Erie, and to a large degree they maintained relative isolation from the yellow walleye. They stayed in the Central Basin after spawning, often using deep water which at that time remained oxygenated. Fish species and subspecies that share the same basin will always come into contact with each other, but the blue walleye tended to school together. For spawning, they headed to the Western Basin reefs, just as do many Central Basin-dwelling yellow walleye and whitefish.

As the blue walleye diminished in number from overharvesting and very poor water quality, it became more difficult to find mates of the same species. Blues began hybridizing with yellows, producing a color phase that was called "gray pike," or "mules." For a short time, gray pike outnumbered blue pike in commercial catches. Then the grays disappeared from further cross breeding. The remaining blue pike traits were absorbed into the now dominant yellow walleye population."

In a manner of speaking, the blue pike weren't wiped out. After their numbers were sufficiently depressed, they were "soaked up."


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## Old Dawg (Aug 11, 2010)

Lot's of good reading in these posts and links. 

Thanks for the information as it brings back a lot of fond memories of fishing Erie in the 40's and 50's. I wish that everyone who loves and fishes the lake could experience those long ago days.


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## ReelPower (May 18, 2009)

So is it a blue pike?


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## c. j. stone (Sep 24, 2006)

Old Dawg said:


> Lot's of good reading in these posts and links.
> 
> Thanks for the information as it brings back a lot of fond memories of fishing Erie in the 40's and 50's. I wish that everyone who loves and fishes the lake could experience those long ago days.


I hope so too. Started fishing the lake abt. 1970 and they must have been already gone since I've never caught or seen one except in pics. My F-I-L lived in Westlake, not a good/regular fisherman, but he went out many nights and easily caught large amounts of them. He told me many stories about those trips and I listened enviously to them.


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## creekcrawler (Oct 5, 2004)

> So is it a blue pike?


Nope. It may have some Blue Pike DNA, but it's not a pure one.
From the gentlemen at Stone Lab -

http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/discuss/index.php?topic=1323.0


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## Flashball (Aug 26, 2009)

Can a harmonic percid community be reestablished in eastern and central Lake Erie? Trautman (1981) concluded that the blue pike was a subspecies of the walleye and noted that there were many *intergrades *in the population. However, confusion existed for many years regarding whether blue pike was a species or subspecies. The loss of blue pike appears to be attributable to *introgression with walleye *(Regier et al. 1969) so it is unlikely that its genome still exists. No expectation exists for a natural recovery of blue pike; however, walleye have shown that they can at least, in part, replace the blue pike as a pelagic piscivore in the harmonic percid community of central and eastern Lake Erie.

http://www.glfc.org/pubs/SpecialPubs/Sp03_2.pdf

****

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Portals/9/pdf/WildOhioSPRING2005.pdf


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## jshbuckeye (Feb 27, 2005)

Lawman60 what is the official word? Did nature find a way?


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## wakina (May 30, 2007)

Ohio Sea Grant has a posting on their site that claims it was a gray walleye, but they will have to have a DNA ran on it to be sure.

http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/discuss/index.php?board=1.0


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## Flashball (Aug 26, 2009)

It has been over 40 years since the last one caught. The experts have already said Blue Pike did what Mother Nature intended, that being survive by passing down some genetic material by Introgression.

At the same time, fisheries management focused their attention on walleyes. Chances are from reading much material on this subject, some makeup still exists within walleyes natural to Lake Erie.

One could conclude that whatever Blue Pike may still have existed 40 years ago still couldn't produce offspring. If the MN Lake transplant experiment is true from years ago, the question remains.................

1. Did they breed 100% Blue Pike, or was it already too late and the specimens they used were already mixed?

2. Why did they stock them in a Lake already inhabited by walleyes?

Looks like somebody missed the boat 50 years ago even though the writing was on the wall.

Too Bad!


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## Lawman60 (May 17, 2010)

The ODNR has the fish as of this past Tuesday. Like moust of you folks in here, I doubt that's it's going to be a blue pike...however...it was NOT a walleye. A mix? Yet to be determined.


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## Rippin (Jan 21, 2007)

This from the Ohio Sea Grant:

We had an angler turn in a suspect fish yesterday, caught off Conneaut that was 472mm (~ 19&#8221 long. It is a walleye, based on the interocular to eye diameter ratio. It falls perfectly in line with Trautman&#8217;s description of adult walleye (0.8-1.2x; this fish was 1.05 &#8211; It has to be 1.4x+ for a blue pike). There was some gray to bluish coloration, and the pre-opercle to post-opercular width was characteristic of some introgressions seen between walleye and blue pike (see Trautman). We have saved the fish and will forward to Dr. Carol Stepien for genetic analyses, but from all our work it appears to be a walleye. We, like Trautman, refer to these as &#8220;gray walleye,&#8221; a walleye expressing some of the old blue pike genes.

Kevin

Kevin Kayle
Fisheries Biology Supervisor


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## creekcrawler (Oct 5, 2004)

Basically, it's a walleye whose great, great, grandpa on his mother's side was a blue pike. . . . .


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## bocajemma (Dec 29, 2008)

Rippin said:


> This from the Ohio Sea Grant:
> 
> We had an angler turn in a suspect fish yesterday, caught off Conneaut that was 472mm (~ 19) long. It is a walleye, based on the interocular to eye diameter ratio. It falls perfectly in line with Trautmans description of adult walleye (0.8-1.2x; this fish was 1.05  It has to be 1.4x+ for a blue pike). There was some gray to bluish coloration, and the pre-opercle to post-opercular width was characteristic of some introgressions seen between walleye and blue pike (see Trautman). We have saved the fish and will forward to Dr. Carol Stepien for genetic analyses, but from all our work it appears to be a walleye. We, like Trautman, refer to these as gray walleye, a walleye expressing some of the old blue pike genes.
> 
> ...



Seems to be a disconnect here. This is talking about a 19" fish and the possible but unlikely "blue pike" turned in was 11" according to the thread. 8" is a big difference.


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## Lake Erie (Jun 20, 2008)

Hope spings eternal for a Blue Pike discovery in Lake Erie!

Lots of good info (links) on this thread, and nice to see many others share my interest in Blue Pike.

At last check, there is still a differance of opinion in the professional fisheries circle as to whether the Blue Pike was a separate species, a sub-species, or simply a color phase of the walleye. There are preserved specimans, and DNA samples. There has not been an official record of a Blue Pike in Lake Erie since (if I remember right) the early1960's. The population crashed rather quick, and when the real warning signs were taken seriously, it was too late.

There are records and lots of stories of Blue Pike being taken from Lake Erie and transplanted in northern lakes. A few Canadian lakes have verified records of transplants. I don't have the article handy right now, but a number of years ago a team did some research into this, found some hybrids in one of these Canadian Lakes, and verified through genetic testing that Blue Pike genes are present in this Canadian lake (they had one speciman that was "half walleye, half Blue Pike").

Is it possible some true Blue Pike still exist in Lake Erie, or elsewhere? Yes, but it's a low probability. Nature often surprises us. Lets hope that someday (my dream) Blue Pike return to Lake Erie, however that my happen.


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## creekcrawler (Oct 5, 2004)

> 8" is a big difference.


Not with fisherman describing a fish. . . . . ..


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## Toxic (May 13, 2006)

bocajemma said:


> Seems to be a disconnect here. This is talking about a 19" fish and the possible but unlikely "blue pike" turned in was 11" according to the thread. 8" is a big difference.


Could be a totally different fish that was sent in? And not the one in question.


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## Bud Riser (Aug 28, 2009)

Gentlemen-the last reported commercially caught blue pike was about 1957 in Lake Erie.
Not sure if they were in Lake Ontario, but Dr. John Forney and I discussed the demise of the blue pike in Oneida Lake and Lake Erie at his dinner table one night.
The weather conditions during that time were duplicated on both lakes and 
bore striking similarities.
Same pattern--degradation of habitat, overfishing and mayflies (forage base) disappeared for quite a while.
To the best of my knowledge, blue pike were naturally occurring in Lake Erie and were never planted.
A number of color phases exist in walleyes includling gray, blue, yellow and one in northwestern Ontario that will blow your mind.
Dr. Edward Crossman from the University of Toronto told me they are hunter orange! Also orange/red perch there too.
This was about 15 years ago that he informed me of this and there may be some Canadian documentation of studies that were done regarding this.
They were looking at habitat, food supply and environmental attributes as possible causes for the coloration.
He would not share the location of these bodies of water with me.
(I don't blame him)
See you on the water.
Bud


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## K gonefishin (May 4, 2004)

A guy in NY caught this Pike...talk about blue!!!! They are trying to figure out if it's a genetic defect or what....I think this pike spent to much time with Smurfet


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## center pin daddy (Apr 15, 2004)

Did he shoot it with a bow? There is one in the picture.


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## K gonefishin (May 4, 2004)

No he said it was released, they could have had it in the boat if they seen a big carp or something....good eye though I didn't even notice it.


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## Shed Hunter 365 (Dec 3, 2007)

Caught a 29" walleye a couple of weeks ago out of Geneva that had blue fins and blue mucus on it. Think it's a little to big to be a blue pike.


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## ChutesGoer (Jun 1, 2009)

We catch a lot of the silver/blue/gray walleye in the river we fish in Ontario. And while the occasional large gray is caught, if you catch a bigger fish you can bet it will be Yellow. The yellow walleye are also much meatier than the skinnier Gray. They are noticably different fish. If you put two 15 inch fish beside each other caught from the same location, the yellow would look MUCH bigger than the gray.


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## Eugene (Jun 23, 2004)

A little more on blue pike from the Sea Grant forum (i.e., my day job):
http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/discuss/index.php?topic=935
http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/discuss/index.php?topic=939
http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/discuss/index.php?topic=927
http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/discuss/index.php?topic=889
http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/discuss/index.php?topic=799


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## Bud Riser (Aug 28, 2009)

Just a heads up.
Mixed in with our yeelows, we got one gray color phase walleye on 8-21 off Avon Point.
Correction on last post-Dr. Edward Crossman is the Director of Herpetology and Ichthyology for the Toronto Museum of Natural History.
Dr. John Forney is the walleye fishery superstar from Cornell University in New York.
Just for clarification...I'm getting "sometimers disease"...sometimes I remember, sometimes I don't.
Bud


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## sdb69 (Jun 12, 2010)

Did you get any pictures of the gray color phase walleye? How rare is it to catch one? How big was it? Pretty cool.


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## Bluepiker (Jul 10, 2010)

The last Blue Pike was harpooned in Cahoon Creek on April 15, 1958 by Fransworth Pickingham IV. Farnsworth was near-sighted and it was purely an accident while he was harpooning suckers to fertilize his rose garden.


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## marcbodi (Apr 12, 2004)

Hi,
I am 67 yrs old and lived at the mouth of the Maumee River.In the early 50's there was a massive fish kill in the river.I remember the banks loaded with dead fish and some looked like small walleyes around 12" long only they were blue.It was around 1954-1955 as it was on the other side of the river that I saw the fish.I would have had to walk across the railroad bridge to get there and I think I was around 12 when I started that.They figured that the Kill came from LOF or Campbell Soup.Could it be that enought Chemicals killed the fish and was strong enough to make the ones it didnt kill unable to reproduce.The walleye Population also crashed right after that.The Toledo Blade should have on record when the Fish Kill was.I was told that up to the 70's LOF would Dump barrels of Chemicals in the river.There had to be a reason for them to stop reproducing at the same time.They went from 1,000,000 to 0 in 3 to 4 years.


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## Eugene (Jun 23, 2004)

Here's an excerpt from a post I made at another forum that might be of interest:

The collapse of the fishery came very quickly: commercial catches ranging between 2 and 26 *million* lbs (!) through 1957, falling to only 79,000 lbs in 1959 and less than 200 lbs in 1964 (Trautman 1981). All this happened at a time before the Clean Water Act or the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement...

The general consensus is that blue pike (_Sander vitreus glaucus_) was not a distinct species at all, but rather a subspecies of walleye (_S. vitreus vitreus_). Blue pike freely formed intergrades with walleye, intergrades occasionally having occured "in rather large numbers" in commercial catches (Trautaman 1981). This is a real factor in considering the collapse of the fishery. As blue pike became scarce, those blue pike a little more like walleye in their spawning habit (not able to find other blue pike to make more little blue pike) would have been able to find similar walleye. They very quickly would begin breeding themselves out of existence in only relatively few year classes. In fact, Dr. Stepien at the University of Toledo has analyzed the genetics of post-collapse bluish walleye. From her report on Ohio Sea Grant project R/LR-4 (which can be searched up at our research page: http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/research/):


> We found that modern-day blue walleye are not historic blue pike, and are not genetically distinguishable from yellow walleye. We are still completing the historic blue pike portion of the study, and have been successful at obtaining sequence data from the historic material.


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