Nice surprise on Saturday

[Phil Landry]

I ran two trips this weekend with a big group and fishing was very good. On Saturday we had some higher flows so we slung sink tips and big stuff all day. Caught a decent brown and a bunch o' bows, but got a nice surprise mixed in. I've caught Pickerel in the Little Red several times, but the ones I have hooked personally have been small. I had a client back in 2009 that caught one slightly bigger than this one, but those are the only two I have seen over 10 inches and have real girth. Has anyone else caught a decent one on the Red? The fish from Saturday hit an articulated 4x long #4 head on. The dumb-bell eyes were facing the gullet and both hooks stuck in the roof of his long toothy mouth... very lucky he didn't head-shake more or he would have sawed through the 2x Floro.

I'll attach some pics:

I think my favorite picture is the facial closeup with the mouthful of blood. The fish was fine, just bled a lot from the roof of his mouth. Maybe he will get a little bigger and take down Abe Vogels long standing state record of 7 pounds 10 ounces, from the Little Red no less in 1979.

and for comparison's sake... here is the 2009 fish

[Terrierman]

Nice fish and I get it. But me being dog man and all. Your companion is fine. Springer, Setter or Brittany can't really tell from the photo. But can tell the dog is a boat dog.

[Phil Landry]

7 year old Brittany (Jojo) and thank you sir. I started putting him on the boat when he was 8 weeks old so he has the routine down. He mainly acts as a hood ornament when running the motor and chills out on the front deck until needed for a picture posing with clients.

as a youngin

[Terrierman]

Liver and white. Good ear set. Looks to be a good weather coat. Very nice dog. And I am sure, quite the bud. Thanks for the extra photos.

Nice Brownies too!

I especially liked the first photo... Put me in mind of a long gone dog that belonged to a friend of mine, But she was lemon and white. Still...

[TheRustyHook]

Awesome day sir! Interestingly enough, about this time two years ago I caught a really solid chain pickerel on Lake Maumelle. It was freezing cold and really really windy that day. I knew it was some sort of Pike, but I wasn't entirely certain of their status (protected,introduced,invasive etc.) in Arkansas so we released it pretty quickly. It wasn't until I got home that I did some research and found that Abe's record of 7 pounds 10 ounces. I need to go through the old phone that had the full size pictures of the fish and put them on here, but I pulled this off of my Instagram from that day.Lord forgive me for what I'm about to do. I really hate when people preface their pictures, most of the time, however, in the instance I'm going to act like a real fisherman and inflate the size of this fish for arguments case. Im 6'3" with hands nearly 9 inches from wrist to tip of fingers. With leather gloves on, my hand was no-where near all the way around this fish. I should have brought it back to the Marina, oh well hind site is 20/20 right?!

So what do you think? I would bet their is a state record Chain Pickerel is out there somewhere. Probably one that will shatter ole Abe's.

Good catch man, keep posting!

[Jason R.]

I've caught a few pickerel out of Maumelle as well- not as big as that one though. Never seen one on the Little Red- pretty cool surprise!

[XP 590]

Is it legal to take a huntin' dog fishin'? Great pics and story. Cool dog.

[ness]

Missed this thread -- we love the Britts. Our last two have been liver and white. Crummy pic, but here's one I've got handy:

[Phil Landry]

Great looking Britts John... I've had three of them in my tenure, love em for a ton of reasons.

Cool seeing some other Pickerel out there somewheres.

Yeah, its perfectly legal! I tried to get him to point at rising fish from the front boat deck... how cool would that be? But, alas... JoJo is a squirrel dog trapped in a bird dogs body anyway and he really doesn't care much about fish, which truth be told is a good thing.