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When I came down for breakfast this morning, the thermometer on the deck read 15 deg. I left my house at 9:30 -- by then the temp had risen to 25 deg. At Jonas Green, the water level was at what normally would be a low tide, but the point in today's tidal cycle was almost high tide. This was the aftermath of yesterday's powerful sustained winds.
I had a pair of Costa del Mar sunglasses on a neck strap. As I reached down to pull up my jacket zipper, I heard a crack. The cold air made the sunglasses frame brittle, and it snapped (@#$&^%).
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I jigged the debris piles for a while with no success. After that I paddled to a Severn tributary. To my surprise, about 25% of the surface of the tributary was covered in skim ice. That limited the areas where I could cast.
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I began working the shallow shoreline areas in the rest of the tributary -- this is where the pickerel generally hang out this time of year. I tried casting a beautiful new 1/8-oz Bignose spinner bait with twin blades , a Gulp, and a soft plastic.
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Today, I had no bites at all in less than 4 ft. I thought about it and concluded that the overnight bitter cold air had caused the water in the shallows to become colder than the deeper water (deeper is relative -- I did not fish deeper than 6 ft today). The water temp was definitely warmer than the air -- my transducer, mounted inside the hull, showed water temps in the mid-40s). The air was still below freezing -- I had some icing of the rod guides.
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I decided to work the waters from 4 to 6 ft deep with a slow retrieve. The only lure that was touched today was a 4.5" Buzztail made by 12 Fathoms lures rigged on a 1/8-oz jighead. The front end was partly torn, so I bit off about 1/2 inch of the nose and put it back on the jighead.
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That tail has a very floppy motion that must have gotten the pickerels' attention. The bite was not hot (nothing about today was hot), but with over 2 hours of persistent casting with very cold hands, I managed 5 pickerel -- 18", 18", 19", 20", and the big one at 23". I had another 10 casts on which I could feel an inquistive bump, but no bite down. I was pleased to see that I could still find a few pickerel today despite the cold conditions.
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The sun helped to warm things up a bit, but when I got home at 1:00 pm, the deck thermometer was showing only 30 deg. One other noteworthy item is that after I returned to Jonas Green and was loading things in the van, a mature bald eagle circled low (25-50 ft up) over the beach for nearly 5 minutes. I never saw an eagle there before, much less having it low and hanging around -- pretty cool.
I had a pair of Costa del Mar sunglasses on a neck strap. As I reached down to pull up my jacket zipper, I heard a crack. The cold air made the sunglasses frame brittle, and it snapped (@#$&^%).
012.jpg
I jigged the debris piles for a while with no success. After that I paddled to a Severn tributary. To my surprise, about 25% of the surface of the tributary was covered in skim ice. That limited the areas where I could cast.
014.jpg 001.jpg
I began working the shallow shoreline areas in the rest of the tributary -- this is where the pickerel generally hang out this time of year. I tried casting a beautiful new 1/8-oz Bignose spinner bait with twin blades , a Gulp, and a soft plastic.
016.jpg
Today, I had no bites at all in less than 4 ft. I thought about it and concluded that the overnight bitter cold air had caused the water in the shallows to become colder than the deeper water (deeper is relative -- I did not fish deeper than 6 ft today). The water temp was definitely warmer than the air -- my transducer, mounted inside the hull, showed water temps in the mid-40s). The air was still below freezing -- I had some icing of the rod guides.
005.jpg
I decided to work the waters from 4 to 6 ft deep with a slow retrieve. The only lure that was touched today was a 4.5" Buzztail made by 12 Fathoms lures rigged on a 1/8-oz jighead. The front end was partly torn, so I bit off about 1/2 inch of the nose and put it back on the jighead.
010.jpg 004.jpg
That tail has a very floppy motion that must have gotten the pickerels' attention. The bite was not hot (nothing about today was hot), but with over 2 hours of persistent casting with very cold hands, I managed 5 pickerel -- 18", 18", 19", 20", and the big one at 23". I had another 10 casts on which I could feel an inquistive bump, but no bite down. I was pleased to see that I could still find a few pickerel today despite the cold conditions.
004.jpg 007.jpg
The sun helped to warm things up a bit, but when I got home at 1:00 pm, the deck thermometer was showing only 30 deg. One other noteworthy item is that after I returned to Jonas Green and was loading things in the van, a mature bald eagle circled low (25-50 ft up) over the beach for nearly 5 minutes. I never saw an eagle there before, much less having it low and hanging around -- pretty cool.
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