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Well, here it is a little more than a year later and we find ourselves into another Fall Pickerel season.

This afternoon after getting my stuff done around the house I snuck off to my favorite pickerel honey hole at a small river. Unfortunately in my haste to capitilize on the window of opportunity and nice weather I forgot to grab the camera. Normally that would not have been such a tradegy but turns out today it kind of was.

I arrived at my favorite hole and the water levels are at a nice level especially compared to last year which was quite low at this time. It had just the right amount of water so I could work my flies across the top of the layers of hydrilla weeds where the pickerel are usually lurking. First cast with a small cone headed white marabou muddler with short jolting strips resulted in a healthy yellow perch. A cast or two later yet another and so on for about twenty minutes.

In between I did see with my polarized glasses a large green flash come up and mouth the fly but just at the same moment I had popped the fly and it hopped right out of its mouth. So I decided I needed something a littler bigger and flashier to interest one of the bigger pickerel lurking in the area. So I switched to a Chartruese Cats Whisker tied on a number 8 hook and first cast was fast to a beauty of a pickerel which I was able to fight for a while and managed to get it to near shore but just as I went to slide it onto the shore the line parted!...so off swam my only cat's whisker...Doh

Just as I was preparing to call it quits I decided on one more fly change and drifted a black bunny leach fly thru the pool and noticed a very slight twitch of the line midway thru the pool so I set the hook and found my self fast to one hell of a pickerel. It put up an incredible battle in that small pool on the little 7ft glass Orvis Full flex which was bent in a U from tip to butt. Luckily the 6lb tippet had all been trimmed back and I hadn't gotten to replacing it yet. So I had confidence the leader should hold all the while that this beast was tearing up and down the river in front of me taking line and going whereever it wished while carefully pressured it as much as I dared. After much tap dancing and chasing it around I finally was able to lean into the rod and coax the beast towards the shore. This mean pickerel did not like that idea and upon seeing shore rocketed out of the water going over a foot and a half in the air and did a back flip. Wow. Somehow I was still connected to this magnificent fish. So a little more playing with some give and take of the line and I am able once again to coax him to shore. Whew...beached..finally. Now what? I have him solidly on the shore with rod thrust in the air and line tight.

I feared that if I gave him slack it would start flip floping and break off. So I held the rod high while I took up some line and moved to gather my prize. When I gripped the beast behind the head I was astounded by its impressive size. When I lifted it off the ground and it shook its body the incredible power was clearly evident. This pickerel was bordering on pike!

I found a nice spot nearby to remove the fly and the hook set was classic corner of the mouth with a long shank keeping the knot nicely away from those nasty sharp teeth. Quickly I put the fish up to the rod and find some marks I can match back at home. From tip to four guide down below the wrap....TWENTY FOUR inches and girth estimated with my hands at 15 inches. Yikes. The fish was solid and body almost square. Quite a fish for this small river. Fortunately I remembered my lip gripper today and made good use of it on the release where the fish once again demonstrated its strength.

I estimated the fish went about four pounds. Not the largest ever pickerel but surely a trophy from this drainage on light tackle. Below is my freind Mikes 4lb pickerel taken this past summer and weighed on a boga grip. Same basic dimensions but taken from a bigger pond with a good forage base..

Guess I will remember the camera next time