Massachusetts has a long history of stocking pike, and if you spend a little time poking around on the Mass Division of Fisheries and Wildlife website, you’ll see that they have stocked 10 ponds around the state on a semi-regular basis, those ponds are East Brimfield Reservoir in Sturbridge, Rohunta Lake in Salem, Buel Lake in Monterey, Holland Pond in Holland, Cochituate Lake in Framingham, Cheshire Reservoir in Cheshire, Quaboag Pond in Brookfield and three ponds that straddle the border between Worcester and Shrewsbury, Lake Quinsigamond, Newton Pond and Flint Pond. This year, they added a new one to the list, Spy Pond in Arlington.
There have been many others over the last 30-plus year that continue to put out fish in spite of not being stocked in more than 20 years. In addition to the ones noted above those include, Wequaket Lake in Barnstable, Quacumquasit Pond in Brookfield, Hamilton Reservoir in Holland, Woods Pond in Lenoxdale, Onota Lake in Pittsfield and Pontoosuc Lake in Pittsfield. Additonally, the Connecticut River, Housatonic River and Concord River all contain pike as well. And in many of these waterways, northern pike are known to successfully reproduce setting up sustainable populations.
Last month, the Massachusetts DFW stocked more than 2,000 northern pike into Cochituate Lake and Spy Pond. These pint-sized pike measure about 11 inches long and will take 2 to 3 years to reach the state’s minimum harvest size of 28 inches. The pike were obtained through a cooperative exchange program courtesy of New Jersey Fish & Wildlife. These toothy gamefish are a prized target of ice fishermen, but will readily strike lures and can be caught year round.
