Sited from Dep Literature
"In CT, pike are fast growing and short lived, usually reaching 26" by age 3 with a MAXIMUM lifespan of about 8 years."

I need to disagree with some of you about fishing the spawn on the CT. Pike are short lived, the spawning on the lower ct provides enough fingerlings to stock all the other lake in CT to full density and excess fingerlings are released back into the CT River. There are plenty of pike there thus the lower size limit. Very few are actually harvested and I shouldn't post this, but by the time the masses hit 53 for pike, a majortity of the fish that are going sucessfully spawn are already in the marsh and the gates have been closed (walk up and see for youself) heed the no fishing signs as most of us would have no quams about making the call :rolleyes: . Most of the fish the 53 crew is catching are fish that will not sucessfully spawn anyhow. They are excess breeding stock that "missed the bus" before the gates were closed. I am relitivly new to pike fishing, but notice there are a lot of people fishing and only a few of them sucessfully catching on a regular basis. If the area around 53 were to be closed, why not close the other natural spawning areas on the river???? Hope I don't alienate any of you I have know for a long time, but we all need to speak our minds.