All Points North - Pike Shooting in Vermont

Go ahead, fish. Make my day.

Each spring, Vermonters partake in an unusual fishing practice

by Casey Ryan Vock

It's probable that every avid fisherman, at one time or another, experiences a frustrating and catchless day. They no doubt brainstorm all the other possible ways to extract fish from the water like using nets or spears. Eventually, their thoughts inevitably drift toward the drastic: “Say, maybe we could use guns to blast them right out of the water...”

Some Vermonters have felt this way for a long time, many still do. For two months during the Spring season, fishermen substitute bait and lures with bullets. From March 25 to May 25, gunmen peer into Lake Champlain, some from tree limbs. All focusing and searching for the big one in a practice that started long ago.

“This has been going on as far back as the early 1900s,” explains John Hall, Information Manager for Vermont Fish and Wildlife. According to Hall, the Native Americans in the Missiscoy Bay region have always used guns and spears as a means for extracting fish, primarily northern pike. “Fish shooting has been a legislative statute on the books for many years.”

Hall recalled state-imposed legislation that made shooting fish illegal in 1969. “However, a group of those devoted to the sport convened and made sure that the statute was overruled in time for the upcoming season,” he says. He also recalls another attempt in the mid-1980s to oust the law. That was a failure as well – there was too much opposition. “I guess it is just a local tradition. Some people just feel that strongly about it.”

Charter captain Richard Greenough, who has more than 40 years of fishing experience under his belt, says the art of pike shooting has maintained its popularity to those people who take interest. Greenough can recall when he and his friends used to have contests to see who tally the greatest number of fish.

“I don’t get to do it that much anymore,” he says. “We’d build little tree stands, or we just built a platform off the end of the boat. A shotgun with slugs seems to work pretty good. Some people choose to use pistols.”

Hall disagrees, “It is just a bad idea. We find fish just tossed up on the shore. The concussions from the shooting can kill other fish around the target.” He also pointed out the difficulty of identifying a moving fish through water.

According to Hall, no one has been hurt yet from the pike shootings, but he stressed that there is always a possibility of a bullet ricocheting off of the water.

“This activity is not being conducted in a residential area,” Greenough explained. He said that the likelihood of someone being injured was very minimal considering it goes on in the middle of the woods. That’s the way you have to go if you want to find the best spots.

During the latter half of March and well into April the spawning season for northern pike is intense. A bull rush of chubby, pregnant females end up bottlenecked trying to get through rocks and other obstacles to their desired bed areas. The statute, though, does not allow for shooting in the spawning regions. Enforcing the regulation on spawning sites presents difficulties similar to poaching. “We are concerned about the northern pike as a natural resource,” Hall says. “The biggest females are coming right up into the shallow, marshy areas.” He believes this may affect the population over time. Other fish may be killed accidentally in the red-hot pursuit for the pike – or intentionally.

In fact, the state law actually allows for other fish to be hunted as well: “In Lake Champlain pickerel, northern pike, carp, garfish, bowfin, mullet, shad, suckers, bullhead and other cull fish may be taken from March 25 to May 25 by shooting and spearing in areas designated under section 4140 of this title. For the purposes of this subsection Lake Champlain includes all connected waters at the same level,” reads Section 4604 of Vermont’s statutory law.

Nonetheless it is mostly northern pike that attract people to this pastime. “We fish primarily for pike,” Greenough said. He says the concussion of the gun blast in the water does not always kill the fish. In fact, he said half the excitement of the technique was trying to gather up the floating fish before they regained consciousness.

“You only have about 15 seconds before they come to, then they’re gone,” he explains. “The ones we didn’t want for food, we’d let go. These are not trash fish by any means.”

Greenough adds that some people still take part in spearing fish. Some people even use bow and arrows to hunt the carp that make there way into the lake. It is primarily in the north end of the lake that shooting, spearing, and bow hunting still go on – the south end is too murky to see any fish.

David Tilton, a fisheries biologist with the United States Fish and Wildlife Services, currently works on a project focusing on Lake Champlain. He said it’s been going on as long as he can remember.

pike2 Historical drawings of Northern Pike Courtesy of NOAA

“I don’t think it can affect the pike population in Lake Champlain,” Tilton explained. “There are a lot of fish in that lake.”

“I hope someday we can get enough public support to stop this practice completely,” Hall said. He has worked for Vermont Fish and Wildlife for over thirty years and hopes the law will change before he is gone.

Until Vermont Fish and Wildlife can muster up enough support to end the practice, the tradition will live on. So if you’re feeling like doing some fishing that guarantees some quick, fairly effortless results, come to Vermont this spring for perhaps your only legal chance to experience pike shooting.

Do you think this practice should be allowed?

pike
Image Courtesy of Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab