Trip Tuesday

[Johnsfolly]

On ‎7‎/‎19‎/‎2018 at 12:54 AM, trythisonemv said:

No pickeral this time ... Maybe next. 

Very spooky fish even in the secret spots.🤕

I wonder if the pickerel migrate upstream towards the spring in the winter and may be more populated further downstream in the summer.

Those fish are some of the most spooky fish I have ever encountered. I don't know if you read my post where I was using a portable turkey blind. I would set up and let the fish calm down for up to ten min before i would make a cast. I caught fish!

[Dkman]

Nice idea....my biggest issue at Crane is I am very impatient and not as stealthy as I need to be

[bkbying89]

On 7/25/2018 at 2:33 PM, Johnsfolly said:

I wonder if the pickerel migrate upstream towards the spring in the winter and may be more populated further downstream in the summer.

Those fish are some of the most spooky fish I have ever encountered. I don't know if you read my post where I was using a portable turkey blind. I would set up and let the fish calm down for up to ten min before i would make a cast. I caught fish!

2

As I remember the only Pickeral I ever caught I was standing in the brush casting over it at a Smallmouth when the Pickeral darted out and grabbed the Rapala. What a fight he put on for a 10-inch fish.

 

Bill

[Johnsfolly]

I catch chain pickerel every time that I fish the 11 pt. Good fighters but tend to cut you off at least when they hit a jig.

[tjm]

Wow! I just learned something, I never knew there were pickerel in MO., never mind in a small branch like Crane.

I used to fly fish for pickerel regular in RI/MA  ponds and lakes; almost always in weeds and lily pads. Once caught a ~9"  pickerel on a Mickey Finn and as I pulled it in a 18-20" pickerel swallowed it; full sight maybe 12 feet from me.  I just sniped the tippet. They must be 30% mouth.  Best way to avoid the cut off that I found is to use tippet small enough to pull in between their teeth like dental flossing (7-8x-6x?) or a short (9'") steel tippet. Retie the fly/lure after every fish. Don't recall ever seeing a pickerel in the streams that fed or ran out of those ponds except the  4" and under. I never thought of them as shy fish, the weed cover would account for that though.

[2sheds]

DKMan - Walkup Stealth is EVERYONE’s challenge at Crane.  I’m convinced it is > 80% of the game.

Have never seen pike at Crane.  My only Missouri catches have been on the ElevenPoint as mentioned elsewhere.  But I’ve caught a ton up in Minnesota and Ontario, so will tell all to avoid getting fingers near the teeth.  Can really do some nasty damage.  When intentionally fishing for pike, we would use steel leaders.  If you hook one -always change your Tippett.

[Johnsfolly]

The grass pickerel that I caught in Crane were all 6 to 7" in length. I caught them all in Feb. This is not a very big species. Didn't get any photos. Found this photo. all of mine were about this same size.

 

[tjm]

ahh, different fish; my pickerel were chain pickerel and commonly get up to 28-30" .  Looking up the grass pickerel, seems a 12"er would be a trophy. Don't think I've ever seen a grass pickerel or if I did I did not know what it was.

[Johnsfolly]

7 hours ago, tjm said:

ahh, different fish; my pickerel were chain pickerel and commonly get up to 28-30" .  Looking up the grass pickerel, seems a 12"er would be a trophy. Don't think I've ever seen a grass pickerel or if I did I did not know what it was.

Chain pickerel seem to be common in the 11 pt and Current rivers here in MO. When you wer fishing Rhode Island or Mass did you ever catch redfin pickerel? They are the northeast subspecies related to the grass pickerel.

[tjm]

Not that I recall, but I never got really good at identifying small fish, they were either bait or a nuisance, you know.  And in water that had both pickerel and pike, I could not always distinguish them. Fun catching and releasing tho. At that stage in my life sunfish were still perch, until a local there informed me they were kiver and another explained they were roach. Then I discovered yellow perch and sunfish became all "bluegill".  I was a daily fisher, but targeted trout and LMB mainly. Lived less than five miles from the "shad factory" for ~ten years not even  aware of it until an article was published in a fly fishing magazine about people coming there from all over to hit the shad runs.