The unseasonably warm spring has been nothing but welcome by me at least. Last years cold spring meant no excitement fishing until almost May. I've had better fishing in the last nine days than I did through June of last year. But I'm digressing from the main gist of this article.
My brother has really challenged me to improve my fly fishing skills especially since I want to try for some trout this year. With that in mind, last Saturday I headed out to the lake with only my fly rod and an assortment of flies including some I had tied myself.
I hadn't made but a couple of casts when I was joined on the bank by another fisherman who turned out to be a gunny sergeant home on leave. He mentioned that he had been fishing the previous day and caught a number of good sized (20"+) pike over by the causeway and that they were in spawn. Boy how exciting would it be to catch one of those. I was hoping that there were some over on this side of the lake too.
I was pretty happy with the way my poppers were casting but not really getting any bites yet. A family of three had been fishing off to my right but had decided to leave and I decided to try where they were fishing as a culvert fed some water into the lake at that point. At this time I had tied on a small fly with a propeller spinner on it. I was really concentrating on keeping my elbow down and not rushing my casting strokes and was actually getting some decent casts in. About my 5th or 6th cast, I was stripping it in when I got a really good hit-whoaa, whatever it was it was fighting like crazy! My heart was pumping like crazy and I was really stressing that I would lose the fish while trying to get my net where I needed it when the fish was in close enough.
I finally got it in close enough to get a good look at it and it was Chain Pickerel. I kept stripping in line and finally had it in close enough to grab my net and scoop her up. Geez, she was really chunky for a Pickerel and just over 22". The gunny sergeant came over and took some pictures for me before I released her to hopefully have a nice successful spawning season. My thanks Gunny for being such a great sport about taking time out of your day to take the pictures for me.
I have to admit, catching this Chain Pickerel was more exciting than any amusement park ride and the thrill of catching it on the fly was really terrific.
If you look closely, you'll see that something tried to take a bite out of her but fortunately only gave her a small cut a few inches in front of her tail.
My brother has really challenged me to improve my fly fishing skills especially since I want to try for some trout this year. With that in mind, last Saturday I headed out to the lake with only my fly rod and an assortment of flies including some I had tied myself.
I hadn't made but a couple of casts when I was joined on the bank by another fisherman who turned out to be a gunny sergeant home on leave. He mentioned that he had been fishing the previous day and caught a number of good sized (20"+) pike over by the causeway and that they were in spawn. Boy how exciting would it be to catch one of those. I was hoping that there were some over on this side of the lake too.
I was pretty happy with the way my poppers were casting but not really getting any bites yet. A family of three had been fishing off to my right but had decided to leave and I decided to try where they were fishing as a culvert fed some water into the lake at that point. At this time I had tied on a small fly with a propeller spinner on it. I was really concentrating on keeping my elbow down and not rushing my casting strokes and was actually getting some decent casts in. About my 5th or 6th cast, I was stripping it in when I got a really good hit-whoaa, whatever it was it was fighting like crazy! My heart was pumping like crazy and I was really stressing that I would lose the fish while trying to get my net where I needed it when the fish was in close enough.
I finally got it in close enough to get a good look at it and it was Chain Pickerel. I kept stripping in line and finally had it in close enough to grab my net and scoop her up. Geez, she was really chunky for a Pickerel and just over 22". The gunny sergeant came over and took some pictures for me before I released her to hopefully have a nice successful spawning season. My thanks Gunny for being such a great sport about taking time out of your day to take the pictures for me.
I have to admit, catching this Chain Pickerel was more exciting than any amusement park ride and the thrill of catching it on the fly was really terrific.
If you look closely, you'll see that something tried to take a bite out of her but fortunately only gave her a small cut a few inches in front of her tail.
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