@gim Here in MI, there's a growing notion that northern pike taste better than walleye. There are absolutely people who will take the northern fillets first over walleye. Perch are not in that notion typically!

Pike are very tasty, I just hate dealing with the slime and y-bones.

12 hours ago, gim said:

Something else to keep in mind. Not sure about where you are, but here in MN we have strict length regulations for keeping pike and walleye in many lakes. So the ability to keep a deeply-hooked fish may depend on the lake one is fishing. Even a deeply hooked fish that falls within mandatory release cannot be kept. The "its gonna die anyways" argument is not a valid reason to keep an illegal fish.

Generally speaking we do not have specific regulations related to bass because the majority of them are released voluntarily anyways.

We have so many lakes that are over loaded with small pike. The bag limit is very liberal here for pike (10 daily) in most of the state, but the caveat is that almost all of them have to be under a 22-26 inch restricted slot length. They're trying to encourage anglers to keep a pile of 21 inchers and release the ones that are over 22 inches.

I do agree with the assessment that pike are decent eating if you catch them out of cooler water and you can clean/filet them properly. I think most people have trouble with that aspect of it. And they can't get past the slime either. Not sure how many anglers are interested in keeping a pile of snot rockets. Probably not very many. The majority of anglers looking to harvest fish here are after walleyes, panfish, or trout. Not pike.

I was implying a legal length fish and never said anything about a not legal fish.

Yeah it depends on the lake here too. Just recently I had to let an undersized pike I had to let go knowing that it wasn’t going to make. it was 22 inches instead of the 24 I needed to legally keep on the body of water I was fishing. The pike T-boned a OG tiny perch deep and in the gills. Sucks having to let it go to die but, I’m not going violate either. Nothing is waisted in nature. Bunch of different critters will eat the carcass

We do have a bunch of lakes in the southern and mid-Michigan “ that have special pike regs “ only 1 fish over 24 inches and allowed to keep 5 under 23.