Pickerel Weekend!

This weekend I went pickerel fishing Friday, Saturday and again Sunday.    Friday night my friend Andrew and I hit the Nerepis area, then on Saturday a group of 4 of us visited Otnabog, and then today I took a guided fishing client back to the Nerepis.    At this point, I'm all pickerel'ed out!

Friday night I met my friend Andrew after work at the launch and we headed out hoping to have a good night.   Up till then we had both been finding the pickerel fishing to be tougher than usual in our traditional places so we wanted to try out new waters and experiment a little.   It's a good thing we did!    I ended the evening with 10 pickerel including a pair that touched the 25" mark on my bump board!   Andrew ended with, I think 7, including one that was a little over 25".   Those are huge pickerel, so we were pretty pumped.

Friday I decided to try out a new lure, that being a turtle soft plastic from Bombshell.    Having not used them before I wasn't sure what to expect, but I they were exactly what I needed.   The pickerel hit time after time for those little turtles, so I kept one rod equipped with them all weekend.

Saturday seen Andrew, Craig, Ipop and myself hit Otnabog lake at Queenstown, NB.   I had been there in previous years and enjoyed amazing pickerel fishing, but on this day, the conditions weren't the same and the fishing was off.   A few of the guys got 6 - 8 fish, I finished with 3 (including a 24" pickerel on a turtle), and one of the guys struck out.   We had hoped for more, but you can't win em all!

Finally today I met a guided fishing client, Ben, back at Nerepis at 6 AM for a morning outing.  Ben had never fished pickerel before, and this was his second time fishing with me in kayak.   Well Ben and I both had a great day landing 15 - 20 each, including several over 20".   We didn't break the 2 foot mark, but there were several pickerel that got away which we think had a good shot at being 24 inches or larger!

All in all it was a great weekend of fishing with a great group of guys.    I'm off next weekend for 2 weeks of camping an kayak fishing through Ontario and Quebec.   Not sure if I'll be able to put any posts up in that time but stay tuned to Facebook for a few updates here and there!

Canada Day Kayaking in PEI

Happy Belated Canada Day!    This weekend, being the long weekend and having both my kids off to Newfoundland to visit with their grandparents, I had to opportunity to head over to Canada's Island province to not only try my hand at fishing there, but also to deliver a brand new Predator 13 kayak to it's new owner!  

Noah had visited me this past Fall to go sturgeon fishing and brought his Hobie on that trip, since then he has decided he wanted to go a different route so he sold his Hobie and joined the Old Town brotherhood!

I got on the road about 5 AM Friday morning, stopping to take a picture or two along the way, and was in PEI and ready to hit the water with Noah by 10 that morning!   For his new kayak's maiden voyage we hit the water in a bay just across from the main downtown area of Charlottetown.    This is an area that Noah fishes often for mackerel though it is currently still a little early in the year, but we figured to give it a try just the same.

There was a ton of boat traffic in the area, clearly a prime recreational waterway, though I suspect much of the island could be considered the same!    Sailboats, jet skis, a few other kayakers, and tour boats were all over the place.

The fishing was slow, but we did catch a few.   Noah and I each landed 3 or 4 mackerel, 1 smelt each, and I also landed a half dozen crabs, being careful to limit them to the bow of my kayak where I could safely nudge them back in the water without having my toes nipped!  

This morning we went back out in another saltwater inlet but the wind picked up soon after we got there and we decided to bail.    The forecast called for ever increasing winds through the day and then very strong winds tomorrow.  So given I wouldn't really be able to get back out in decent weather I called it a day and headed back home to NB.