Don't complain about the hammer handles. They eat just as well as walleye. Options: fillet the y bones out; run them through a grinder and mix with favorite spices and make fish patties (awsome good); pickle them (dissolves the fork bones) or smoke them (you don't mind working around the fork bones to get the meat!)
I have embarrassing pictures from the day before catch and release was even mentioned. We used to fish NW Ontario after ice out for big pike on the surface in shallow water. In canoes. . They could not go down, so they went out and up! And towed you around a bit. Good clean fun.
Once caught a mouse in our food pack. Jury quickly sentenced it to death. I took a treble hook and put a rubber band around the mouse and the hook. We had heard a large pike in an eddy in the river above our campsite, but none of us could catch it. I got into a canoe and took the mouse to the opposite side of the river from camp, and half-hitched it to a bush. Paddled back to camp letting line out. Got out and pulled the mouse into the current. The submarine came up and hit the mouse - fish came completely out of the water, and the mouse was 5 feet in the air. Mouse did not move when he hit the water again. . I tightened the line and twitched him. The fight was on. After running up and down the river bank, i landed and release a 25# brute. Seems if pike hit something and miss, they don't hit again unless it moves slightly. Although I shouldn't say that - it may be that they would eat it anyway, but I get impatient waiting for them to come back!
