Saturday Pickerel Fishing w/ Pics

[kayak456]

today i went fishing in spa creek on the severn river. i used my new st croix mojo inshore medium light fast 7 ft rod with a saros 3000 and 10 pound braid . i got it for xmas and it was my first time using it and i loved it. anyway i thought about using mirrolures for the pickerel would work great since mirrolures suspend and it would be good for the lathargic pickerel. i used the mirrolure alot in nc for speckled trout and i love them. this past september i started using them in selby bay for stripers and they also worked great ( i used the mirrolure catch 5 for stripers). today for the pickerel i tied on a mirrolure mirrodine in a pink back,white belly color (its deadly on trout) and i cast out and began to twitch every few seconds like i would for trout and i saw a pickerel chase it first cast but not take it. then within in next 30 minutes i hooked 4 and finally i got one all the way on the dock.so that makes 1 following pickerel, 4 hooked,and 1 landed. and i only fished for 45 minutes so i though that was pretty good. it was only my second pickerel ive ever caught but i found a place in the severn where you can fish from shore and catch them so i will be fishing for them alot more now. oh and the pickerel were all about 18-20 inches and the one i caught was 20.25

I just wanted to share my success with using mirrolures for the pickerel because im sure others might try it. the mirrodine is the smallest mirrolure they make i think and its about 3 inches long. i am going back tommorow for a little before my basketball game so ill write a report. i got 2 minnow traps soaking now so ill be interested to see if the pickerel like minnows or mirrolures tommorw.

good luck

[J.A. Veil]

I'm glad you caught them well on a hard plastic lure. I know several other anglers who have done well with small hard plastics. You mentioned that the lure was less than 3" long. I think that is important -- based on my experience, pickerel are more likely to hit baits/lures of 4" or less than ones that are larger. You chose well with that lure.

[kayak456]

yeah John. before i went fishing today i completed my eagle scout project workbook and now that thats out of the way i can pickerel fish alot more,now all i got to do is the project and im done. but after that i made a small box of everything i think i need for the pickerel. latly ive been bringing this box,a spool of 14 pound test flouro for leader and a pair of pliers and thats it. i just finished making this spinner bait that has 2 spinners and many green beads. most spinner bait only have one spinner and i think with it having 2 the blades will click together and draw the pickerel in. i also just pinch down the barbs on all of my pickerel lures. i found that it was very hard to get the hook out of the pickerel i caught today so i pinched down the barbs on my mirrolure.

[J.A. Veil]

All of those lures look they could attract pickerel. I hope you made a typo in your post when you said you carried "a spool of 1 pound test flouro for leader". I assume you meant 10-lb.

I use 20-lb test that may be a bit overkill, but it sure helps when I try to lift a thrashing pickerel out of the water. I used to use fluoro, but started using mono in Dec -- the results seem to be the same, and mono cost much less.

[kayak456]

sorry i ment to write 14 pound test flouro. and i use berkley vanish which comes in a 300 yard spool (i think) and its the cost of mono. its only like 20 dollars. it only goes up to 20 pound test though. i uses it for perch leaders and for trying bottom rigs when surf fishing. when livelining or flounder fishing i use seagar 25 pound test.

[Pinch]

The mirroglass and mirro minnow are smaller than the mirrodine. Wonder if they would work.

[Shady]

Congrats on catching another nice Pick.
I read somewhere that Picks really target on orange and yellow because they like to eat small sunfish and yellow perch. On my last outing I caught one on a small yellow rooster tail spinner, but i generally have the most luck with a minnow on light jighead. I've also seen picks hit just about anything flashy in loch raven. I wonder if tidal pickerel behave differently from pure freshie picks?

[J.A. Veil]

Congrats on catching another nice Pick.
I read somewhere that Picks really target on orange and yellow because they like to eat small sunfish and yellow perch. On my last outing I caught one on a small yellow rooster tail spinner, but i generally have the most luck with a minnow on light jighead. I've also seen picks hit just about anything flashy in loch raven. I wonder if tidal pickerel behave differently from pure freshie picks?

Ryan -

At the risk of being corrected by a fisheries biologist, I can offer this opinion. Pickerel probably have a range of search images imprinted in their minds for the types, sizes, and colors of prey items that they are likely to encounter where they live. The article that you mentioned was (I think) a post on Tidalfish made by Tom Glen Burnie about a month ago. He recalled some words of wisdom passed to him by an uncle suggesting that yellow and orange were good lure colors because so much of the prey items found by reservoir pickerel were juvenile bluegills. Tom did not know if the same thing applies to tidal pickerel, which are less likely to find young bluegill as their primary food source.

I suspect that the Severn tidal pickerel I catch are not feeding much on bluegills because I have never caught a bluegill in the same waters where I catch pickerel. I have done well on tidal perch and pickerel using a small spinnerbait in sun perch (with orange and yellow plastic fibers). I caught plenty of perch and pickerel on chartreuse Gulps too. As you mentioned, my best performing bait is a live minnow (in brown/drab olive color). Pickerel are ambush feeders -- when something within their search image range passes nearby, they most likely swim out and either investigate or bite it. On many of my recent outings, I can see pickerel follow a minnow all the way back to the boat. Once I spot the pickerel, I stop my retrieve and let out some line so the minnow sinks. Usually, the pickerel watch the minnow drop then turn and slowly swim away.

[perchy]

Nice to see someone's still catching fish! My goto cold weather lure for pickerel is a chartreuse 4 inch grub or silver husky jerk. Pickerel and Yellow Perch seem to be easier to catch in the cold.