Status of Lake Nipissing Northern Pike and Associated Fisheries 1967 to 2018 George E. Morgan Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry North Bay September 2019 1 September 2019 © 2019, Queen’s Printer for Ontario Printed in Ontario, Canada This publication was produced by: Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry North Bay District Office 3301 Trout Lake Road North Bay, Ontario P1A 4L7 Online link to report can be found at: https://www.ontario.ca/page/fisheries-management-zone-11-fmz-11 This document is for fisheries research purposes and does not represent the policy or opinion of the Government of Ontario. Some of the information in this document may not be compatible with assistive technologies. If you need any of the information in an alternate format, please contact 1-705-475-5502 This technical report should be cited as follows: Morgan, G.E. 2019. Status of Lake Nipissing Northern Pike and associated fisheries 1967 to 2018. Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, North Bay, Ontario. 58pp. Cette publication hautement spécialisée n’est disponible qu’en anglais en vertu du Règlement 411/97, Cette publication hautement spécialisée (Status of Lake Nipissing Northern Pike and associated fisheries 1967 to 2018) n'est disponible qu'en anglais conformément au Règlement 671/92, selon lequel il n’est pas obligatoire de la traduire en vertu de la Loi sur les services en français. Pour obtenir des renseignements en français, veuillez communiquer avec le ministère des Richesses naturelles et des Forêts au 1-705-475-5502. This highly specialized publication (Status of Lake Nipissing Northern Pike and associated fisheries 1967 to 2018) is available in English only in accordance with Regulation 671/92, which exempts it from translation under the French Language Services Act. To obtain information in French, please contact the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry at 1-705-475-5502. 2 Table of Contents List of Tables ...................................................................................................................................... ii List of Figures .................................................................................................................................... iii Appendices ........................................................................................................................................ v Executive Summary/Résumé ............................................................................................................. vi 1 ‒ Introduction………………………………………………………………………………. .................................................. 1 2 ‒ Methods ...................................................................................................................................... 1 2.1 ‒ Study Area ........................................................................................................................................................ 1 2.2 ‒ Data for Fish Stock Assessments ....................................................................................................................... 2 2.2.1 ‒ Fishery-dependent Data………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….2 2.2.1.1 ‒ Winter Creel….…………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………2 2.2.1.2 ‒ Open Water (Spring-Summer) Creel…………………..…………………………………………….…………...4 2.2.1.3 ‒ Commercial Gill Netting.……………………………………………………………………………….……………….5 2.2.2 ‒ Fishery-independent Data ................................................................................................................... 5 2.2.2.1 ‒ Summer Index Trap Netting ............................................................................................... 6 2.2.2.2 ‒ Ice Out Trap Netting (IOTN) ............................................................................................... 6 2.2.2.3 ‒ Fall Walleye Index Netting (FWIN) ..................................................................................... 7 3 ‒ Management History .................................................................................................................. ..8 3.1 ‒ Recreational Fishing Regulations...................................................................................................................... 8 3.1 ‒ Nipissing First Nation Commercial Fishing ....................................................................................................... 8 4 ‒ Data Analyses ............................................................................................................................... 9 4.1 ‒ The Fisheries ..................................................................................................................................................... 9 4.2 ‒ Biological Attributes…….…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……….………10 5 ‒ Results and Discussion ...................................................................................................... ………..11 5.1 ‒ The Fisheries - Angling .................................................................................................................................... 11 5.1 ‒ The Fisheries - Commercial ............................................................................................................................. 18 5.2 ‒ Biological Attributes…….……………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………….…….19 6 ‒ Summary .................................................................................................................................... 24 7 ‒ References ................................................................................................................................. 25 Acknowledgements.......................................................................................................................... 27 Appendices ...................................................................................................................................... 28 i List of Tables Table 1. Number of Northern Pike•100 Walleye-1 harvested by Nipissing First Nation commercial fishers as reported on their daily catch forms 2009 to 2018. Page 9 Table 2. Linear regression models of fishing effort-catch and fishing effort-harvest for winter and open water recreational fisheries for Northern Pike. Page 13 Table 3. Male and female Northern Pike von Bertalanffy growth parameters from fish captured during the 1998 to 2018 fall Walleye index netting projects. Page 20 Table 4. Condition (total length-weight regression of log10 transformed data) of male and female Northern Pike captured during the 1998 to 2018 fall Walleye index netting projects. Page 21 Table 5. Linear regression models of Northern Pike biomass and open water fishing effort 1972 to 2018 fall Walleye index netting projects. Page 24 ii List of Figures Figure 1. Lake Nipissing winter creel survey sampling sectors. Page 3 Figure 2. Lake Nipissing open water creel survey sampling sectors. Page 5 Figure 3. Proportion of fishing effort (angler-hours) targeting Walleye, Northern Pike, and Yellow Perch during the winter and open water creel surveys. Targeted angler effort is the amount of time in hours that an angler spends fishing for a specific species. Page 11 Figure 4. Estimated fishing effort (angler-hours) from the winter and open water creel surveys 1970 to 2018 (Significant trend line (LOESS regression) for open water fishing effort time series also plotted). Page 12 Figure 5. Estimated number of Northern Pike caught from the winter and open water creel surveys 1970 to 2018 (Significant trend lines (LOESS regression) for winter and open water catch time series also plotted). Page 13 Figure 6. Estimated number of Northern Pike harvested from the winter and open water creel surveys 1970 to 2018 (Significant trend lines (LOESS regression) for winter and open water harvest time series also plotted). Page 14 Figure 7. Proportion of Northern Pike kept from the winter and open water creel surveys 1970 to 2018 (Significant trend lines (LOESS regression) for winter and open water % kept time series also plotted). Page 14 Figure 8. Angler success rate (number of Northern Pike caught•angler-hour-1) from the winter and open water creel surveys 1970 to 2018 (Significant trend line (LOESS regression) for winter angler success time series also plotted). Page 15 Figure 9. Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients for Northern Pike catch and harvest from anglers fishing ≥3 hours during winter (top panels) and open water (bottom panels) creel surveys 1998 to 2018 (pooled data; 1826 winter anglers and 924 open water anglers). The 45o line represents perfect equality of catch (a total of 1953 Northern Pike were caught in winter and 1339 Northern Pike were caught in open water) or harvest (a total of 1486 Northern Pike were harvested in winter and 382 Northern Pike were harvested in open water) amongst anglers (Gini coefficient = 0). Gini coefficients and the proportion of anglers who did not catch or harvest a Northern Pike are presented within the graphs. Page 16 Figure 10. Average size (total length in mm) of harvested Northern Pike (with ±95% confidence limits displayed for samples sizes ≥30 fish) in the winter and open water creel surveys 1981 to 2018 (Significant trend lines (LOESS regression) for winter and open water average size time series also plotted). Page 17 Figure 11. Size distribution (average ±95% confidence limits) of harvested Northern Pike from winter and open water creel surveys 1981 to 2018. Page 17 iii Figure 12. Age distributions (average ±95% confidence limits) of