Pickerel fishing tips

Any tips on how to specifically fish for pickerel. I havent hit 1 all year, so im obviously doing something wrong. I typically use rubber worms and thats been hitting large and small mouth bass all day and night. For whatever reason im 0 for the year 2009 on landing a pickerel.

Thanks

You and I seem to be having the opposite luck, haha. I fish for bass and always end up catching pickerel. i've been using spinner baits a lot: white and chartreuse bodies/skirts, and also the gray/smoke/black color too.

HaHa thats too funny. For the bass the Yamamoto worms have been unstoppable for me recently. Ill def give your recommended lures a try. Thanks man

I was catching a lot of pickerel about a month ago when I was using non-standard retrieves on spinnerbaits to mix it up (when the bass weren't biting).

I'd let the lure sink to the bottom and bump it along a bit like a worm til I could feel a little open water. Then I'd reel in to the surface and pretend I was fishing a buzz bait for a few feet (reel fast enough to keep it on the surface). Then it would be a jerk bait (pause, tug tug, pause, reel, tug, pause, etc).......

The point is, I'd change it up several times in the same cast with whatever kind of lure I was using, and although the bass weren't generally interested, the pickerel loved it! I even had one chase a gulp minnow I'd done this with about 4 inches out of the water RIGHT in front of me. He hooked himself on the way back down, all I had to do was hold on, then lift the rod tip back up to pull him out of the river

I've had luck hooking them with spinners and soft swim baits

I used to catch a lot of picks on the Johnson silver minnow spoon.
I did not use a trailer just the spoon.

Thanks for all the tips. Very helpful. Actually landed my 1st pickerel of the season in NH on a squid lure. I was pumped!

pickerels seem to love hitting jerk baits. white is a good color. or anything else that darts and slashes. spinnerbaits work well to, but pickerels mostly like to be in weeds, so a weedless lure is a better bet.

yeah, crank baits and jerk baits. gold is a good color. have also had luck on spoons. we caught a bunch earlier in the year. it slowed down over the summer, but we were using more bass type baits. but we almost always get pickerel when using crank baits.

use a top water Rapala black and gold J9 joint minnow swims killer and you will catch bass and pickerel and perch you name it!!!!one of my favorites in may catch tons of fish!!!!

Thanks Smoke and everyone, very helpful tips. Ive been landing pickerel at a rapid pace these days, and loving it


This is the biggest pick i have seen, caught by Valpey at the tourney, onyl if this thing counted!!

I know this thread is kinda old, but I thought I'd chime in abit as this year I'm going to try to specifically target pickerel, instead of just the occasional catch while fishing for largemouth...

In my mind, I would think that anything that a pike will hit, a pickerel would hit - but maybe just on a smaller scale. If you'd use a 5" Daredevle spoon for pike(for example), maybe a 3" would be good for pickerel? I know I've caught quite a few on Mepps and Roostertail spinners, which are basically scaled-down bucktails, right?

I dunno... make sense to me. I'm gonna try to mimic pike fisherman on a smaller scale. I'll post pics if/when it works out!

here's one I got last year on a spinnerbait:

Hey Napa!

For pickerel, I've always had the best luck with topwater lures retrieved at a faster pace than you normally would for say bass and the like.

However, I have caught pickerel on plastic worms when fishing is extremely slow.

Above all else, I've found that if you find the weed beds(espcially like the thin filament type weed) , you'll find the pickerel.

I have caught many large pickerel on a large spoon with colors resembling a yellow pearch I have caught many from 1 oz to 4 IBL and you can use it any where from deep yo shallow water

just got this one the other day on the 1/4oz chartreuse spinnerbait w/ #4 nickel colorado blade - my first fish of 2010! Caught it in about 3 feet of fairly stained water on a wind-blown rocky bank.



There was abit of brush on the bank and in the water, as you can see in the picture, but no weeds that I could see... might still be too early for much weed growth. But yeah, come later spring/summer, weeds are THE key. I've seen em come blasting out of thick slop a foot deep to grab a lure.