Brian Cronk and I explored a new lake, apparently a former sandpit from long ago. A concrete operation exists nearby, so it makes sense it would have been a sandpit. Shorelines quickly drop off to 20 feet and deeper. Sound familiar?
Right there at the ramp we cast topwaters over a very appealing weedbed at about 8:00 a.m. under cloud cover and some raindrops, but we failed to raise any action. I began to feel it would be a tough morning.
Pretty soon we motored across the lake (maybe 50 acres total) over depths as great as 27 feet. Brian phoned a friend who fishes here with shiners and live herring. He wanted any help. Told to fish to the left of the concreate company and an "inlet," we happened to find the little creek leading in he mentioned, right away. I started a process of picking apart weeds and shoreline cover with a Yum Dinger rigged Wacky, soon switching out the color in case that would help, but I came to the realization pretty quickly that I needed to use a Chompers rigged on an inset hook to manage those weeds.
Meanwhile, a nice pickerel had followed Brian's Chatterbait to the boat.
Neither of us had had a hit.
Sunfish like to play with my Chompers. Maybe it's the garlic. Any case, they're signs of life but can be a little annoying. Soon, though, I saw my line moving towards deeper water with authority in the motion, so I tightened up, set the hook, and then I saw I played a fairly good sized pickerel. (The one photographed below.)
One would have thought bass, but it was a pretty fish.
Deliverance! I struggle with getting skunked. When it happens, I struggle to feel good about the outing. I wonder about how catching a fish can make such a difference in life, but catching them really does amount to a whole other quality. It can't all be in the numbers, because that's quantity. It's like the difference between being lonely and left out, and being a member of the community.
You can fish an entire outing and never get hit. That happened to me at Furnace Lake this spring, although Brian lost a musky. And it happened at Aeroflex four years ago with Jorge Hildago in June. Neither of us got a hit. Cloudy, not too warm. I usually do well at both places. On one occasion, I caught 15 largemouths, just about all of them good sized, at Furnace.
So you can't just say the lake sucks the first time you try it--if it goes sour on you--and be entirely certain that's true.
Brian had wanted to stop at noon and I agreed. Possibility of thunderstorms, though since I've come home, none have showed up at least in my corner of the state. We situated in the back of the lake, and Brian suggested we troll Hot 'n Tots from there to the ramp.
We had a clean run--no weeds on hooks, no snags--all the way back to that original weedbed, and that's where hell broke loose. I felt like a pilot. Managing the troll along that weedline edge. It seemed as if weed clusters rose almost right beside the boat. If I wasn't going to foul that deep-diver of mine, that would be something. Brian was fishing the deeper side of the boat. My skill in getting that plug of mine right in the zone made all the difference. I did feel the fish when it hit, but I couldn't help but think weeds, just too good to be true otherwise. Now that fish was taking drag.
I've never measured a pickerel I've caught longer: 24 3/4 inches. I've caught more just about that size than I can count, having measured another 24 1/4 inches once, and maybe having caught one longer through the ice. I released it quickly to avoid exposure. I called it 24 inches, but it might have been 25. Even if not, it was a very hefty fish and probably weighed more than the one I caught today.
We made two more passes along those weeds. Up and back twice. On the first of those last passes, I hooked something that felt just like a hybrid. Pickerel kind of lug. Largemouths bulldog. Neither species gives those hard and very quick jabs--altogether distinct--that a hybrid does, or otherwise a salmon. No possibility exists of salmon in this lake, but Brian told me hybrids got caught last year. My fish got off the hook, unfortunately.
We did see what looked like herring dimpling and leaping at the surface when we arrived.
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