Why are there closed seasons for pike in spring?
Because spawning concentrates the entire adult population — including virtually every trophy female in the system — into tiny, shallow, absurdly accessible marsh bays for a few weeks. Fish that are scattered and hard to find all year become easy to sight-cast, snag, or net at exactly the moment their eggs are on board or freshly deposited. Closed seasons (standard across much of Canada and the northern U.S., less common in parts of Europe and the far north where populations absorb it) exist to get the females in and out of the marsh unmolested. Where the season is open at spawn time, the sporting choice is to fish staging areas, not the beds themselves.
The full story
This answer is one piece of a longer lesson — setups, diagrams and the reasoning behind it.
More questions about Spawning
Same topic, other species
- Is it wrong to keep spawning males off the beds? — Crappie
- How long do largemouth guard their fry? — Largemouth Bass
- What is a tiger muskie? — Muskellunge (Muskie)
- What eats the eggs, if nothing guards them? — Yellow Perch
- How long does the male guard, and what is the fry ball? — Smallmouth Bass
- Why are there closed seasons for trout, and why do they differ by species? — Trout (Rainbow · Brook · Lake)
- Do walleye eat during the spawning run? — Walleye