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Now that the ice is gone from my beloved Severn River, I wanted to see if the pickerel that were biting in December are still there. I fished Sat and Sun in Severn tributaries with minimal success. I caught one pickerel on each trip. Yesterday I did a change of pace, hitting three freshwater spots on the eastern shore -- again just one fish for the day -- a small LMB.
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I had not planned on fishing today. After lunch, I looked at the windfinder.com forecast for tomorrow -- it reported strong winds. The forecast for this afternoon was very low winds. So on the spur of the moment, I loaded up my Manta Ray 11 kayak and headed to Jonas Green. The water level was already low and would drop throughout the afternoon. I planned to fish in two tributaries this afternoon. In the first tributary I caught four pickerel in water about 3-4 ft deep. I was feeling happy about the increased catch rate.
I moved over to the second tributary (the place where I caught a single fish on Sunday). The very low water level had moved fish away from the edges and concentrated them in the deeper section toward the middle of the tributary. They were not everywhere, but once I found them, the bite was strong. In about 1.5 hours, I caught 11 more pickerel and had bumps or grab and drops on 23 other casts. This was the fastest action I have had in months. I left the fish biting after my feet got too cold to continue.
During the first part of the winter when I was competing in the Severn River Rod and Keg Club winter-long pickerel tournament, I used live minnows as my preferred bait. Pickerel prefer live minnows to artificials most of the time. But after the tournament was over (and I won this year) I switched to fishing artificial lures. Most of my fish came on a 12 Fathom 3" Fat Sam mullet paddletail. At one point a pickerel ripped the lure off the jighead. I added a 4.5" 12 Fathom Buzztail with a long, slender tail stalk and a big sickle tail that pulsates nicely at low speed. The pickerel bumped that lure but would not hook up. I bit off 3/4" from the front of the Buzztail and rethreaded it on the jighead to make the lure shorter. After that modification, I began getting more bites and several hookups. I found that I needed to bounce the lure slowly along the bottom in 4-5 ft depth. Once I did that, the fish were all over it. I had a few fish near 20" with the rest in the mid-teens. There were no tiny hammer handles like the ones that were common in December. They either grew up or got eaten.
The photo shows the shortened Buzztail (top), full size Buzztail (middle), and Fat Sam mullet (bottom).
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001.jpg
I had not planned on fishing today. After lunch, I looked at the windfinder.com forecast for tomorrow -- it reported strong winds. The forecast for this afternoon was very low winds. So on the spur of the moment, I loaded up my Manta Ray 11 kayak and headed to Jonas Green. The water level was already low and would drop throughout the afternoon. I planned to fish in two tributaries this afternoon. In the first tributary I caught four pickerel in water about 3-4 ft deep. I was feeling happy about the increased catch rate.
I moved over to the second tributary (the place where I caught a single fish on Sunday). The very low water level had moved fish away from the edges and concentrated them in the deeper section toward the middle of the tributary. They were not everywhere, but once I found them, the bite was strong. In about 1.5 hours, I caught 11 more pickerel and had bumps or grab and drops on 23 other casts. This was the fastest action I have had in months. I left the fish biting after my feet got too cold to continue.
During the first part of the winter when I was competing in the Severn River Rod and Keg Club winter-long pickerel tournament, I used live minnows as my preferred bait. Pickerel prefer live minnows to artificials most of the time. But after the tournament was over (and I won this year) I switched to fishing artificial lures. Most of my fish came on a 12 Fathom 3" Fat Sam mullet paddletail. At one point a pickerel ripped the lure off the jighead. I added a 4.5" 12 Fathom Buzztail with a long, slender tail stalk and a big sickle tail that pulsates nicely at low speed. The pickerel bumped that lure but would not hook up. I bit off 3/4" from the front of the Buzztail and rethreaded it on the jighead to make the lure shorter. After that modification, I began getting more bites and several hookups. I found that I needed to bounce the lure slowly along the bottom in 4-5 ft depth. Once I did that, the fish were all over it. I had a few fish near 20" with the rest in the mid-teens. There were no tiny hammer handles like the ones that were common in December. They either grew up or got eaten.
The photo shows the shortened Buzztail (top), full size Buzztail (middle), and Fat Sam mullet (bottom).
008.jpg
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