Spa Creek Pickerel

Launched at Truxton Park at 10:30 and fished till 3 in Spa Creek. Landed two pickerel with only one photo worthy@ 18.75".



Fished with an old school red and white daredevle. The second fish was cigar size, so I unhooked him in the water. Also had some follows. Does anyone know when leaf season opens? Did a lot of leaf C & R all day.

[Turtle135]

Nice looking pickerel!

I consider leaves to be an invasive species, they do not belong in the waters we are trying to fish, Mother Nature needs to clean up her act!

[whenican]

Nice fish, Capt! I hate all those leaves getting in the way too.

[bgriff]

Glad to see you were able to get out on the first day of the derby and catch some fish. I'm going to try and get out later today if I can get finished work in time. I'm planning on fishing Weems Creek on Sunday.

[Mark]

Capt C-Hawk,

Great fish!

I also entered the pickerel tournament but I haven't been out yet.

Good luck to you for more like that one!

[J.A. Veil]

Nice fish Bob. I had my first pickerel outing this morning in the Severn. Usually by this time of the fall, I have made a dozen trips and figured out where they are hiding -- not this year, though. The water was incredibly low when I launched at 9:00. A large section of the beach at Jonas Green was exposed. That limited the amount of habitat where the fish could be.

I fished three rods, favoring lighter lures because of the low water level. One had a Strike King micro-king spinner bait of 1/16-oz. It caught one 15" pickerel. Another rod had a 1/16-oz jighead and a 3" Gulp swimming mullet. It hooked up three times -- each one was roughly the size of the one you showed (18-19"). The third rod had a safety pin spinner arm with 1/8-oz jighead and 4" Gulp. The third rod had a few gentle bumps but no bites.

Even though the bite was slow, the wildlife were out taking advantage of the low water to move onto normally submerged areas. I have occasionally seen foxes when I fish, but never more than one on any given trip. Today, I found two foxes on a small sandy beach watching me (one at either end of the first photo). A standing or walking human usually makes them nervous, but a large orange object with a sitting human did not seem to bother them at all. They did not spook at all.

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[Shady]

Wow! the left one almost looks like a gray fox, which are not nearly as common around this area as they used to be. Very cool shot with the red fox on one end and the gray on the other

[Mark]

John,

Good catches and good photos.

I just got a pair of Kotatat waterproof pants, new kayak shoes and a new light spinning rod that I hope is a pickerel magnet.

If the weather cooperates, I'll be out this coming week to test the Severn and Weems for pickerel.

[camelbird]

Nice pick