Foggy Morning

[J. Rentch]

Wanted to target some Pickerel in local waters, so I launched from Jonas Green abt 9 to very heavy fog. Not wanting to cross the Severn, I paddled north to a local pond. Once inside I started throwing a white Schminnow to the shoreline.
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I worked my way around the shoreline and finally found some active areas. I managed to land 6 Pickerel, most were under 14”, a couple around 18.5”. One was missing part of its upper lip. Guess something took it out when it was younger. The area was totally healed.
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Even though it was foggy, I had a great time out there-very quiet and flat.

[clm]

Nice...my local pickerel hole has been a little.slow, but the LMB have been more than happy to take up the slack....good looking schminnow.

[J. Rentch]

At the end of the day, the tail of the Schminnow was red (blood).

[Mark]

John,

I noticed that the pickerel inhaled the fly as opposed to being hooked in the corner of its mouth like most of my pickerel catches on the fly.

Perhaps that's how it has coped with its deformed "leaky" mouth.

You had a good outing.

Congrats.

[J. Rentch]

Mark,
Most of the Pickerel were hooked in the lower throat, not the lips. Maybe I need to use a larger hook?

[Mark]

John,

Your hook has a large gap but I cannot tell its size. A larger hook may help.

I use 2/0 sproat hooks on my pickerel flies -- mostly Mustad 3366.

Occasionally, they will inhale it but the majority of the time they are hooked like this:

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Even topwater strikes result in the same hook presentation:

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They will hit smaller flies and sometimes they will swallow them. Here I got lucky on a May bluegill outing. I was using a size 6 streamer:

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The smaller picks were an annoyance that day. But note the same hookup in corner of mouth.

I believe that picks hit their prey from behind and to the side. I've seen them do this in clear winter waters. Then they turn it in their mouth just prior to swallowing it. I think I tend to strike when they turn it and that's why so many of my hookups are the same.

[dsaavedra]

Nice catching John... that's one weird looking pickerel. Looks like something I would catch haha. No doubt that's likely due to a prior hook injury - overzealous hookset would be my guess.