Can you keep a northern pike in Wisconsin?

Closes each year Closed March 8 through May 1 (spring closed season); season runs May 2, 2026 through March 7, 2027

A real 26-inch minimum on this system - most of the Winnebago Chain's other regulated species (walleye, catfish, panfish) carry no minimum size at all.

WDNR source page

Closes each year Closed March 8 through May 1 (spring closed season); season runs May 2, 2026 through March 7, 2027

No minimum size here, unlike Lake Winnebago's 26-inch rule, and a higher daily bag (5 vs 2) despite sharing the same open/closed season window.

WDNR source page

What we left out on purpose

• Lake Winnebago's own site data (data/reports/lake-winnebago.json) tracks Walleye only as a target species, so its largemouth/smallmouth bass rule (14-inch minimum, 5/day, open all year) is not modelled here even though the DNR page lists it - out of this site's tracked scope for that water. Northern pike was added despite neither water listing it as a tracked target either, specifically because Wisconsin's two-lake, two-species scope otherwise left each species page under the site's three-sibling-link minimum (see SESSION-ANLEITUNG.md, Silo-Regel) - pike is genuinely DNR-regulated at both waters, not invented to pad the count.
• Wisconsin's 'total daily bag limit' (a same-day, cross-water cap, e.g. 5 walleye/sauger/hybrids combined no matter how many lakes are fished) is genuinely different from the possession-limit multiplier concept (KS 3x, ND/UT 2x) used elsewhere in this silo, so no possessionLimit value is set for any Wisconsin region - inventing one would misrepresent how Wisconsin's rule actually works. The statewide 'total daily bag limit' table also lists a separate north-of-Hwy-10 (5) vs. south-of-Hwy-10 (2) default for northern pike; the per-lake numbers here come directly from each lake's own regulation page and are treated as authoritative over that general zone default.
• Muskellunge and flathead catfish carry their own seasons and, on Lake Winnebago, real minimum sizes (muskellunge 50", flathead catfish a 30"-minimum/36-42"-protected-slot combination) - not modelled since neither tracked water lists these as target species on this site; northern pike, by contrast, is modelled (see above) despite the same caveat, purely to satisfy the site's internal-linking minimum.