Pickerel with Ictalurus

[J.A. Veil]

Many MKF members know Ictalurus (Bill) who was an active poster on this site for several years. A new job, long commute, and young child have seriously curtailed his fishing time. I was very pleased when Bill told me a few days ago that he planned to fish for pickerel in the Severn today. We made plans to meet.

I started fishing about 8:45 and found the bite to be nearly non-existent. Bill arrived half an hour later. We tried some different areas in the Severn tributary and by 10:00 the fish started biting. I left at 11:15 after catching 14 pickerel. I ran out of minnows or I would have caught more. Most were 15" to 17" fish, but one little guy made me laugh out loud. This 8" pickerel was the smallest one I have ever caught. It hit a minnow on a 1/16-ounce jighead. It was about the diameter of my thumb.



A few minutes later, I caught another pickerel. As I had the leader in my hand and was trying to grab the fish's body in order to remove the hook, it lunged and scraped it's jaws across my thumb. The sharp teeth left a few gouges. I had to stop fishing for 5 minutes to apply pressure to the cuts and stop the bleeding.




In the meantime, Bill (who does not fish with live bait) was getting into a pretty good rhythm catching one pickerel after another with a Rapala plug and a Powerbait soft plastic on a jighead. Here is a blurry picture of one of Bill's fish. He caught the largest pickerel of the day -- I think it was 20-21" long.



I had to leave at 11:15 in order to have time to unload the gear and drive to the meet and greet this afternoon. It was great to fish with Bill again.

[ictalurus]

Thanks, John. It was great to be fishing again. I've been itching for a pickerel fix since November. Pickerel are my favorite species to target in winter, with yellow perch a close second.

Anyway, John was putting on a pickerel catching clinic:











My pic of the biggest fish came out blurry, too. I caught a few more after John left, one of which was 19":



I ended up with 7 fish I think, except for the 19-incher and the 20+ incher, most were in the 14-17" range like this guy:



The hot lure was a 3" Berkeley Power Bait minnow grub in firetiger. I picked up one pickerel on a perch colored X-Rap and one on a 2" firetiger Storm shad. Nothing hit my trusty 2.5" firetiger floating Rapala, which was unusual. I ended up with 7 or 8 pickerel in total. It was a nice way to start of the year, get my January fish, and catch up with John again. It was just what the doctor ordered...

[Reelaxin10]

Nice pics and good looking fish guys!

[mytmouse]

WTG fellas!! Bill what was that lure you were using? Or if you don't wanna divulge the exact model, what type? Just being curious... my rooster tail was been and had paint being chipped after hooking up with just 3!! LOL

[ictalurus]

MYT--No secret. Here they are: http://www.berkley-fishing.com/produ...er-minnow-grub

I was using the firetiger color. The tail is more chartreuse than the picture suggests. Ed (Aesiegel) suggested them last year, I think. I picked them up when Dick's was having a Berkley lure sale last spring. John figured out that the pickerel were hanging near the bottom, so I retrieved it just fast enough to keep it up out of the green bottom slime and gave it a twitch every now and then. Usually, I would feel weight on the line after the second or third twitch. If I didn't have a hit during most of the retrieve, I would stop reeling when the lure was 4-6ft away from the boat, let it fall, then bounce it on the bottom a few times. I caught 3 or 4 of them that way on Saturday. That trick works well for redfish and yellow perch, too. Sometime the pickerel want the lure closer to the surface. In that case, I jiggle it near the surface instead of bouncing it off the bottom.

[mytmouse]

Cool stuff man!! I might have to check them out!