Special to the Times
With the discovery of illegally planted Northern Pike in Comins Lake, the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the prosecution of the person(s) responsible. Conviction of this crime would be a misdemeanor.
The reward money has been donated by several sportsmen’s groups, including Nevada Bighorns Unlimited and the Operation Game Thief Citizens Board.
“We’ve invested tremendous time, money and resources in eliminating pike from this fishery. The person illegally planting fish is costing sportsmen money that could be better spent, and they are destroying one of Nevada’s most productive and heavily utilized fisheries,” said Chief Game Warden Tyler Turnipseed.
“This is an ugly and damaging act, and we intend to find who did it.”
In 1999 Comins Lake suffered an illegal northern pike introduction, most likely from Bassett Lake to the north. Within ten years, the pike had destroyed the trout population.
In 2015, NDOW spent more than $250,000 to remove illegally stocked northern pike that had decimated the trout fishery at Comins Lake. Since then, NDOW worked to rebuild the fishery with the introduction of trout and largemouth bass, in the Spring of 2016 all designed to benefit the sportsmen of White Pine County and visitors from all over the country.
“This malicious and illegal act seriously endangers our effort to restore this important fishery for local anglers and those who travel to White Pine County to enjoy amazing fishing,” said NDOW Fisheries Chief Jon Sjoberg.
At its peak in 2004 Comins Lake reached 35,000 angler use days, an estimate of how many people fish a body of water per year based off angler questionnaires, making it the fourth most visited fishery in the state behind only Lake Mead, Lake Mohave and the Truckee River. With the introduction of pike, that number fell to around 2,000 angler use days by 2013. The money spent by anglers using Comins also dropped from over $2 million to around $73,000 during that same time frame.
Northern Pike are not native to Nevada, and when introduced into certain waterways, this voracious predator consumes all the natural resources in a given waterway, destroying native fish first and eventually causing a collapse of the invasive pike as well. “There’s a reason why pike are considered an invasive species in Nevada,” said Sjoberg. “The people illegally introducing pike are destroying a fishery, not creating a new one.”
Anyone with information on this illegal introduction of pike can call the OGT hotline at (800) 992-3030. Follow Turnipseed on Twitter for the most up to date information @Chief_GW_NV for up to the minute information on boating, wildlife and water safety in Northern Nevada.
Still not sure how there was a 100% chance they would get the pike out of comins? I was one of the people who were upset there wouldn’t be a place to catch these great fish only found pretty much in the midwest. But, I understand how comins has the potential to make it such a trophey fishery, and more people like to catch trout than pike.
I just don’t understand how they know this was done by someone dumping pike back in the lake and come to find out the 5 pike were only 5 1/2″ big. Also caught in the non-spawning season? If there were 1 or 2, maybe they got them all, but 5, tells me there are more.
Wish they could of replaced the pike with Tiger Muskie to make everyone happy.
Pike used to get as large as 25 to 30 inches in Bassett decades ago (not Comins or Cave). Fun to reel in, not great to eat. They will swallow other fish whole (makes for a ‘fun’ surprise while cleaning them).
The last big striper I caught out of lake mead being 44lbs which made the LVRJ, had nothing in its stomach.
Yet a few weeks later I caught some smaller stripers and found crawfish in there stomachs. I had to send a email to NDOW asking if there were crawfish in lake mead and surprisingly there are. Doubt any get to big with the way stripers decimate everything, but that was a big surprise.
People think I am weird when cleaning a fish since I do look at whats in the fish’s stomach. They don’t realize it helps me find colors of lures that might help me catch more fish. I did find a trout that some how survived in a pike i cleaned out of comins. I only know 3 people who caught a pike out of Comins. I am one of them. They were all 20+ inchers but had war scars from pike bites.
I did a little research about Pike reproduction and posted this on a NV fishing forum I use. Some of you might find this interesting. This is post is in no disrespect to NDOW or anyone who helped “erradicate the pike” from Comins. But facts are facts. The facts in there podcast aren’t what multiple scientists/wiki says. Here is my post from BigFishTackle
If only I didn’t get in a car accident a little over a year ago that broke my back and neck, I would love to go up to comins and do a little trolling and see if the pike are still there.
The size of the fish that were found by NDOW using there electric nets/boats only being 5 1/2″ tells me, they are spawning. If you listen to the podcast, they clearly say these had to be put in by someone since pike spawn in the spring.
Not sure if its just me, or does a 5 1/2″ pike sound like a baby pike that survived the spring spawn. The wiki on Northern Pike says Female Pike can spawn around the age of 2. They also like to lay there eggs in dense vegetation/creeks according to the wiki. The erradication was done in 2015 so wouldn’t that correspond with the age in which pike reproduce?
Northern Pike Wiki Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_pike
They say in the podcast you can buy pike online and have them shipped to you. That is incorrect in the state of Nevada since pike are a prohibited species. Not sure where there is a fish farm that breeds pike anywhere close to us either for someone to go through the trouble of buying pike to just put in Comins Lake. By the size of Ely, McGill, Ruth, or Lund, I am guessing a game warden would know by now if someone has a Pike Pond and is the one throwing them in there, with how serious they are about catching the person or person(s). The only other thing I don’t get is how they say the pike that were found are a different breed of pike? The pike I used to catch in the St. Joe river that flows to lake michigan looked the same as the ones I caught in Comins?
If they were afraid of someone dumping pike back into comins, they should of put the maintable replacement, Tiger Muskie. They don’t reproduce, and it would give anglers a chance to catch a very fun aggressive species. But I am not a biologist with a degree that has access to Tax Payer money.