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ComeOnFish gets his first pickerel
I met ComeOnFish (Joe) at Jonas Green this morning. He had already been jigging the debris piles for a while and was ready to go find some pickerel. I had two tributaries in mind. We headed to the first tributary about 9:30 and found 1/4 of it covered in ice. Joe was fishing artificials and I fished minnows. Although he is a good fisherman, this was a species and technique with which he was not yet familiar. To add to the difficulty, with the cold conditions, the bite was very slow. About 10 minutes into the fishing, I found my first pickerel. At that point we split up to work separate areas. I caught two more small ones and found that Joe had caught his first pickerel.
Now that the ice was broken (an appropriate analogy this morning), we kept working promising areas. As the sun climbed and warmed the surface water layer, the bite picked up. I ended up with 8 pickerel, including one mammoth fish of at least 22". I had the fish at boat side, grabbed the leader, and lifted it out of the water. At that moment, the fish gave one last powerful lunge and spit out the hook. It dropped against the gunwale, but slid back into the water before I could measure and photograph it. Among the other fish I caught this morning were three 19" pickerel. They looked skinny and short in comparison to the big one that got away. Joe may have gotten the fish on film. About the same time, Joe had one strong fish that bit off his line near the side of his boat.
We felt that we had worked that tributary hard enough for 1.5 hours and headed for the other tributary. Part way there, we met aesiegel (Ed), who had already visited the second tributary. Ed told us that a large percentage of that tributary was ice-covered and was not really fishable.
All three of us spent a few minutes jigging the debris piles again without a bite. My recollection is that about this time last winter, the rockfish either left the debris pile or stop biting my lures. So perhaps they have moved off.
Ed and I called it a day, but Joe is a hardy soul. He now had the pickerel bug and wanted to try out some minnows that I gave him. I'm sure Joe will make a report later. Congratulations to Joe for getting his first pickerel. Now he is on his way to another fishing challenge.
Now that the ice was broken (an appropriate analogy this morning), we kept working promising areas. As the sun climbed and warmed the surface water layer, the bite picked up. I ended up with 8 pickerel, including one mammoth fish of at least 22". I had the fish at boat side, grabbed the leader, and lifted it out of the water. At that moment, the fish gave one last powerful lunge and spit out the hook. It dropped against the gunwale, but slid back into the water before I could measure and photograph it. Among the other fish I caught this morning were three 19" pickerel. They looked skinny and short in comparison to the big one that got away. Joe may have gotten the fish on film. About the same time, Joe had one strong fish that bit off his line near the side of his boat.
We felt that we had worked that tributary hard enough for 1.5 hours and headed for the other tributary. Part way there, we met aesiegel (Ed), who had already visited the second tributary. Ed told us that a large percentage of that tributary was ice-covered and was not really fishable.
All three of us spent a few minutes jigging the debris piles again without a bite. My recollection is that about this time last winter, the rockfish either left the debris pile or stop biting my lures. So perhaps they have moved off.
Ed and I called it a day, but Joe is a hardy soul. He now had the pickerel bug and wanted to try out some minnows that I gave him. I'm sure Joe will make a report later. Congratulations to Joe for getting his first pickerel. Now he is on his way to another fishing challenge.
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