Off The Scale Bass Tournament Loses Entry When Record Pike Hits

Washington’s tournament fishing rules are explicit. An angler fishing in a bass contest can’t kill a fish of another species.

So what did Fred Ruetsch do when he hooked a monster 32-pound, 3-ounce northern pike during a bass tournament on Long Lake on Saturday?

“I told him, ‘Fred, we have no choice; we have to disqualify ourselves and keep that pike,”’ said Bill DeMaris, Ruetsch’s tournament fishing partner.

“Fred looked at me and said, ‘This fish isn’t getting released, even if I have to go to jail.”’

That’s conviction, considering Ruetsch is a Spokane County Sheriff’s detective.

The anglers pulled up to a dock and called tournament officials at Forshee’s Last Resort in Tumtum and disqualified themselves from the tournament.

They forfeited their $100 entry fee and their chances to compete with 21 boats for $2,100 in prize money.

They knew they had a Washington state record northern pike in the boat.

Ruetsch, coincidentally, was fishing with the state expert on that subject. DeMaris has held the state record for northern pike since September 1980, when he landed an 18-pound, 6-ouncer at the same Spokane County reservoir.

Moments after Ruetsch hooked the pike, DeMaris realized the fish was nearly TWICE as big his record. But getting the fish’s official weight wasn’t an easy task. A certified scale is required for recording a state record.

“Certified grocery store scales only go to 30 pounds,” DeMaris said.

“We bottomed out on the first one we tried,” said Ruetsch.

The anglers paraded the pike around in an ice chest for 6 hours until Ray Duff, Washington Fish and Wildlife Department regional fisheries manager, suggested they take it to a North Side veterinary clinic.

The pike also measured 43.7 inches long and 24.2 inches in girth.

“It was really strange that I should be with Fred when he hooked this pike,” said DeMaris, who lives on Long Lake. “He virtually caught it in my backyard.”

Ruetsch and DeMaris, who have been fishing together since 1976, have both hooked several northerns in Long Lake through the years, but none was landed. Since they spend most of their time fishing for bass, Ruetsch and DeMaris don’t use the steel leaders used by most pike anglers.

A pike has a notorious mouthful of teeth that can snip heavy monofilament fishing line in a heartbeat.

DeMaris said he’s hooked and lost two state-record-sized pike since 1980.

“But this one had nothing but hook in his mouth,” said Ruetsch, who was casting a chartreuse and orange spinnerbait.

“I was fishing in about 3 feet of water when the lure came to a stop. There was no vicious strike. It just stopped. Then the water boiled.

“I got it to the boat twice, but it just surged away. There was no way it was going to fit in the net we had in the boat.

“So the third time I got it close, Bill got it by the gills. When he lifted it into the boat, the fish went nuts and cut Bill all to hell. We put Band-Aids on his fingers to stop the bleeding, then we just sat down in the boat and shook.”

The pike was an egg-laden female. Idaho Fish and Game Department biologists, who have have been doing research on pike in recent years, estimated Ruetsch’s would have laid 288,000 eggs.

Instead, it’s going to a taxidermist.

“It’s hard to tell whether this pike came downstream from Lake Coeur d’Alene or whether it’s the progeny of pike that came into the Spokane River system years ago,” Duff said. “But it’s no surprise that the pike are there.”

“Nobody fishes for pike intentionally down here,” said resort owner Scott Forshee. “I bet they will be now.”