Back at the Pickerel

Andrew, that's a big pickerel. I'd say most anglers here are targeting fish in the 18-20 inch range, with anything over 20 being a bit of a surprise, and a population with no fish over 18 being not very interesting.

Here's what the Maine DIFW has regarding pickerel/pike ID. The black bar that runs from the eye to the back of the jaw is the best sign I know.

http://www.maine.gov/ifw/fishing/species/identification/pickerel_pike.htm

Here's another that also shows muskies (another invasive here, courtesy of introductions in Quebec.)
http://www.eregulations.com/maine/fishing/muskie-pike-or-pickerel/
 
27 is a big pickerel in my book. In southern New England, they are not really loved and considered a pest by many.
 
Andrew,
Sheepishly, I have to admit that if I caught that fish I would call it a pike and throw it back. How do you tell? I have never caught a pickerel.
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I have to agree with Gordon. I've caught a lot of pike and now I wonder if I've caught any Pickerel?
 
Jeff you ever fish Androscoggin Lake for pickeral? I use to ice fish there years ago and it was difficult to get 5 traps set before a flag would go up! After a time you would get sick of catching them.
 
Yep, that big in my book!

We have both chain and redfin, I've never caught one down here. Our water supply reservoir is know for having them.
No one around here that I know of fishes for them, most people consider them a nuisance.
 
27 is a big pickerel in my book. In southern New England, they are not really loved and considered a pest by many.
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That's interesting, they were our main target in NE PA when setting tip-ups. Walleye and bass were bonus fish.
 
That is a nice pickerel Andrew! I used to fish for them a lot when I was younger. We didn't have many "northerns" (pike) around. I consider anything over 20" to be a nice pickerel. My largest was 24.75".
 
Jeff you ever fish Androscoggin Lake for pickeral? I use to ice fish there years ago and it was difficult to get 5 traps set before a flag would go up! After a time you would get sick of catching them. Those are the best mornings!!
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Yes, very good to eat. Nice white flaky meat. I liked them best baked.
Only problem is all the Y bones in the fillets. I just picked them out, a real pain.
Some on here might know how to fillet the Y bones out, I never could figure it out.
I think that is why making fish patties or pickling them & pike is popular, the bones get chopped up or dissolved in the pickling solution.
 
Jeff, the best differentiation sequence is: pickerel have a fully scaled cheek patch and gill cover; northern pike have a fully scaled cheek patch and scales on the upper half of their gill cover; muskellunge have scales on the upper half of their cheek patch and upper half of their gill cover.

Andrew, were you using a pulsed DC shocker or an AC boom shocker when you picked-up that pickerel?
 
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We do everything with pulsed DC down here. Most of our electrofishing rigs are Smith-Root GPP's. For the lake in that picture we typically shock 60 pps at 1000V and 3 to 4 amps. I work with a guy who was with WI DNR for 20 years and he talks about using AC up in the northwoods lakes but I've never done it.
 
Nice set-up!

You induce tetanus in shocked fish with AC, so you have to be quick with the net, particularly in deeper water. That is why I asked. With the reduced water clarity from high levels of primary and secondary production in your lakes in Florida, using AC to shock fish would likely result in relatively high numbers of fish falling out of the electrical field without being seen or captured. Other than "frying" fish that touch the electrodes and some mortality in high surface area to low volume fish like darters, pulsed DC is much more efficient, particularly in pulling fish out of woody cover and undercut banks. We used to pull some monster trout out of cover and under-cut banks with a pulsed DC shocker we rigged with three wand electrodes attached to cord reels on the Salmon Trout,AuSable, Pigeon and upper reaches of the Pere Marquette during stream surveys. The center electrode wand operator wore a harness that tethered him to the Sport Yak that held the generator, with a section of copper screen mounted to a styrofoam panel tethered off the back as the anode. We had three Pulsed DC back-pack shockers, too.
 
We actually have a wide variety of lakes here. Most of our large resources are eutrophic or hyper-eutrophic with decent conductivity, but there are a bunch of lakes in the Ocala National forest that are oligotrophic, low pH and low conductivity. On the other hand, the St. John's River and associated lakes are somewhat brackish, and conductivity usually runs around 1000 us/cm. Water color can range from green to super clear to coffee black. It just depends on the lake.
 
Interesting, I assumed that carbonate/bi-carbonate hardness values would be uniformly high in nearly all your lakes. What type of soils dominate the watershed of these lakes? Are these true oligotrophic lakes or are the dystrophic systems?
 
Jeff you ever fish Androscoggin Lake for pickeral? I use to ice fish there years ago and it was difficult to get 5 traps set before a flag would go up! After a time you would get sick of catching them.
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Nope. I've poke around over there for bass in open water season, and duck hunted it once without much success. Kennebec Land Trust has a rustic cabin on an island they've preserved, and some buddies and I have talked for years about renting the cabin to set up for an early duck hunt there.

My pickerel fishing is most limited to small, hike-in ponds I can have to myself with minimal disturbance from the snowmobile and
ATV anglers.
 
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