Pickerel fishing 1/5/14

[SpareChange]

Put in at Jonas Green this afternoon. Fished for about 1hr in the cove at Manresa. I could only fish in about 1/4 of the cove, the rest of the area was ice covered. Caught 2 pickerel on a white 3 inch paddle tail bass assassin. the fish were 19 3/4 and 22 inches.1-5-13 19 3-4.jpg1-5-13 22.jpg

[dsiekman]

Nice fish!

[Mark]

Outstanding!

[J.A. Veil]

Great work in taking advantage of what the weather conditions gave you. Catching two pickerel in a limited space beats a skunk day anytime.

[J.A. Veil]

Your post inspired me to get outside today. Most of my pickerel spots that I fish from the kayak were ice-covered on Sat. With today's warmer air and last night's rain, much of the ice cover is gone. I had hoped to take the kayak out for a quick trip. But before leaving home, I checked out several wind forecast websites -- they all predicted strong winds all afternoon with even stronger gusts.

I decided to return to my pickerel roots. In the first year of the SRRKC pickerel derby (2006), I fished 90% of the time from the shore. I had found an accessible spot that produced lots of good pickerel catches for me. I may have caught the largest pickerel of the year in that spot, but the leader broke with the fish at my feet. I never got to measure it.

Sadly, that spot has produced absolutely no pickerel for me in any year since then -- something wiped out the local population. Given today's windy conditions I decided to give it another try. It was cold and gusty standing at the water's edge. But after 5 minutes of casting, I had my first pickerel. It fought well and was quickly released. Over the next 20 minutes, I found two more pickerel in the same general location. All were in the 17" to 19" range and all were very active, even in the cold water.

I am very pleased to see that at least a few pickerel returned to that tributary and to that accessible spot. It reinforces the adage that if you don't try at least a few casts in an area, you will never catch fish from that area.