Catch a pike in an Anchorage lake and you have to kill it

Anglers who hook a northern pike in any Anchorage-area lake must kill it and report the catch, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said Friday.

The instruction applies across the Anchorage Bowl, not only to waters where pike have turned up before. Live release is already banned under this year's Southcentral sport fishing regulations, and anglers may dispose of a pike by returning the dead fish to the water.

Pike are native north of the Alaska Range and invasive south of it, where the department says they can do significant damage to salmon and rainbow trout populations. Eradication programs are running in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, around Anchorage and on Kenai Peninsula lakes.

Crews eradicated pike from Lower Fire Lake and Fire Creek in October 2022, treating the water and finding none afterward.

Reports go through the department's online invasive species reporter.