St Mary's Pickerel 4/6

[Big Mike]

Hit St Mary's lake again today - the water temp had risen to 56.5 degres but the wind was still making it a little bit harder to fish than I would like. Headed up to the upper reaches looking for warmer water - surprisingly it was actually cooler than closer to the dam. I ended up trolling a Yamamoto grub up and down the channel and got 2 real nice pickerel - one was 22" and the other 20". Caught 2 bass, one was about 14" and the other was just bigger than the lure. Did not catch any fish from the standing trees today. I also tried for crappie as there were huge schools of fish showing up on my fish finder suspended at about 10' in 18' of water. Must have been baitfish as I could not get a bite from them. Hope to get out there several days this week as the weather, other than some showers looks promising.002.jpg

[InshoreMac]

Very nice getting jealous !!

[perchy]

Nice job! Any pickerel over 20 is a nice one

[Big Mike]

I was quite happy. There seems to be a healthy population of nice sized pickerel in the lake. Big bass on the other hand have been elusive.

[InshoreMac]

Are pickerel any good to eat?

[Big Mike]

I've never had them. Like a northern they are full of bones making them very difficult to clean and/or eat. My grandma used to like baked Northern but i left that delicacy to her. I assume a pickerel tastes similar.

[JayJ]

Pickerel taste a lot like Northerns, but they are harder to debone than northern. On a side note, crappies were hitting pretty well at the lake today.

[Big Mike]

Got out today - caught 1 decent bass, probably half a dozen typical 10-12" bass and half a dozen pickerel. Water temp had cooled slightly but the bass didn't seem to mind as they had moved up into 4-6' of water. I wanted to hit Piney Point but the wind forecast out of the south makes that a dicey proposition. Plenty of shelter on the lake, but it seemed like the wind really didn't blow too bad today. Oh well, pullage is pullage.003.jpg