First Severn pickerel for Nitefly

[J.A. Veil]

Yesterday Nitefly (Eric) asked me if I was fishing on Dec 31. I told him I would watch the weather and make up my mind the next morning. Eric told me this morning that he would launch from Jonas Green at 12:30 today. I joined him. The water was fairly calm when we launched, but the wind built steadily over the next 3 hours. By the time we returned to Jonas Green, we had to undertake a surf landing with 2 ft waves slamming us onto the sand. We survived, but were both glad to be off the water. The photo does not do the waves justice -- they were nasty waves with strong winds.

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Now for the fishing report. Eric told me that he had never caught a pickerel in the Severn. I hoped that we could change that quickly. We paddled to our first location and began fishing. I suggested a few spots and told him to cast to water 3 to 6 ft deep. He is a fast learner and soon had a characteristic bend in his rod. It turned out that he broke into the pickerel world with a bang -- he caught a huge pickerel. Here are some photos of Eric in action. I hope he will post the closeup photos that he took of the fish on his measuring board. It was close to trophy size.

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We fished in that location and tried another tributary for a short time at the end of the trip. Eric caught three pickerel today, I had 6. Eric had the largest fish of the day. One of my fish had a nasty wound about halfway along its back. I hoped to get a photo but the fish spit the hook at boatside. I think it had been speared by a heron recently.

[kayak456]

Hey john I see that spot by car ALOT driving by, can u shore fish there or is that a private road

[J.A. Veil]

It is a private road leading to a commercial facility. The shoreline is not very convenient for casting -- I tried a few times years ago. Plus there is no good place to park.

[sparky1423]

Great job on the pickerel....it's a good time fishing with Eric. You should have rode those waves in to the parking lot!

[kayak456]

Thanks john , can't convince my dad to go kayak fishing in the winter, however in on fire fishin from shore, ice found about a dozen spots on the Severn I can fish from shore and all ate doin great

[Mark]

Eric, John,

Great job.

Special congrats to Eric for landing his first Severn River pickerel. Many more to come for you, I'm sure.

I saw the wind come up this afternoon and remarked to my wife that it would be a bad day to be on the water.

[J.A. Veil]

Thanks john , can't convince my dad to go kayak fishing in the winter, however in on fire fishin from shore, ice found about a dozen spots on the Severn I can fish from shore and all ate doin great

Andrew -

My first year pickerel fishing was in 2006. I fished only from the shorelines and had to work hard to find access points. If you already have a network of spots, you are in good shape.

[Runnin]

Sounds like nice outing. WTG.

[Nitefly]

What a great way to end 2013! I had actually gone out with JHoss (John) on 12-23 to try for Pickerel and got skunked and rained on quite a bit. JHoss caught one Pickerel though. Despite the wind forecast, I wanted to give it a try before my regular work schedule picked back up after New Years. It was great to get an opportunity to fish with John V! Here are pics of two of the Pickerel. I think the big one is just shy of 24" and in my excitement, I failed to get a good full frame shot. The third one I caught was in the 14-15" range and he decided to unhook himself and make an acrobatic exit from kayak after I brought him on board.

A more detailed blog post here:
A detailed blog post

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[whenican]

Nice fish! I caught a couple pickerel around Baltimore the past couple years. They are fun to catch. I need to get back out there again.

[J.A. Veil]

Eric -

Here is a tip to improve visibility on your Hawg Trough. There is a raised ridge at each inch on the scale. If you take a Sharpie or other permanent marker and draw a line on each ridge, you can see the scale more easily. Last month I redid the lines. This time I took a piece of cardboard from the back of a pad of paper. It was flexible enough to bend along the curve of the trough. I could hold the edge of the cardboard next to the ridge and get a pretty straight line. The photo shows how it looks when the lines are marked.

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[Nitefly]

Eric -

Here is a tip to improve visibility on your Hawg Trough. There is a raised ridge at each inch on the scale. If you take a Sharpie or other permanent marker and draw a line on each ridge, you can see the scale more easily. Last month I redid the lines. This time I took a piece of cardboard from the back of a pad of paper. It was flexible enough to bend along the curve of the trough. I could hold the edge of the cardboard next to the ridge and get a pretty straight line. The photo shows how it looks when the lines are marked.

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Thanks for the tip John.

[jet]

beautiful fish!