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St. Mary's Lake, 3/18
I hit St. Mary's Lake for a few hours with kevinfry to try and catch my March fish. We launched around 9:30 and started poking around our usual spots for crappie, pickerel, yellow perch, and bass. Our first stop and usual trolling spots didn't produce, so we headed toward another spot that has been good to us this time of year. I caught my first fish of the day, a small bass, nearby:
While the bass was small, it had the brightest red eyes I've ever seen on a fish besides a rock bass (aka "redeye"). I couldn't really get a photo that captured the color accurately:
At the next spot, I caught a hammer-handle pickerel:
And one that was a little bigger:
I think there's something wrong with my net because that fish was easily 20-22 inches before it went into the net. Clearly, the net knocked off 4 or 5 inches.
I also caught a smaller one that I released at the boat (totally intentionally 
).
Kevin also caught a pickerel, a crappie, and something else interesting that I'll let him explain.
All my fish were caught on a firetiger PowerBait minnow grub (i.e., curly tail minnow) with an 1/8oz jig head. The fish were in areas where there was a 5-7ft channel near a 3-4ft flats, and I'd alternately cast from the channel to the flats or along the channel. The real trick was to stop reeling when the lure was about 6-7ft away, let it drop to the bottom, and jig it a few times. The bass and the hammer handle hit while jigging, and the other two pickerel hit as soon as I stopped reeling. The water temp ranged from 44.7 to about 46.7 depending on where we were, but some of that might've resulted from my kayak heating up when the sun came out. In all, it was a nice trip, and I enjoyed the sunshine.
While the bass was small, it had the brightest red eyes I've ever seen on a fish besides a rock bass (aka "redeye"). I couldn't really get a photo that captured the color accurately:
At the next spot, I caught a hammer-handle pickerel:
And one that was a little bigger:
I think there's something wrong with my net because that fish was easily 20-22 inches before it went into the net. Clearly, the net knocked off 4 or 5 inches.
I also caught a smaller one that I released at the boat (totally intentionally ).Kevin also caught a pickerel, a crappie, and something else interesting that I'll let him explain.
All my fish were caught on a firetiger PowerBait minnow grub (i.e., curly tail minnow) with an 1/8oz jig head. The fish were in areas where there was a 5-7ft channel near a 3-4ft flats, and I'd alternately cast from the channel to the flats or along the channel. The real trick was to stop reeling when the lure was about 6-7ft away, let it drop to the bottom, and jig it a few times. The bass and the hammer handle hit while jigging, and the other two pickerel hit as soon as I stopped reeling. The water temp ranged from 44.7 to about 46.7 depending on where we were, but some of that might've resulted from my kayak heating up when the sun came out. In all, it was a nice trip, and I enjoyed the sunshine.
Glad they were biting, it was a beautiful day down here. I'll have to check the regs to see how many hooks on a stringer are allowed to determine if your pole was a legal catch.
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