my first two pickerels

[endless]

decided to go out fishing monday and thought about trying for pickerel since i never caught any of those before. i bought me a dozen of large minnows and went to the mattaponi river. i tried different way like dropshotting but the minnows would dig in the leaves on bottom of river. i caught two for the day the first one was smaller and caught him only with minnow on hook no weight. the second i caught with bobber. im happy a good day with some good time spent alone. i had to get out for a while. wasnt really cold till round 2 o clock felt like temp was dropping and my car battery died and only had sunflowers to eat. man i was getting hungry. to make matter worse i dump out my minnows thinking i was leaving so was stuck waiting for buddy to give me a jump and had no more bait. a state boy showed up and check my ids and couldnt give a jump saying their not allow to carry cables. i think i was wating for an hour maybe hour and half.

oh well the first two pics are the first pickerel and the last two are the seocnd pickerel. my shoe is 11"3/4 long only way to get some what of a measurement i left my gripper at home that has a tape measurer to it.but anyways im happy with my first two pickerels just wish i had my forsets and grippers them pliers i had sucked.

does anyone have any advice for fishing pickerels?

p.s. im going back tomorrow hopefully catch some more would like to get bigger. one of the guys that live near the river says they some big boys in the river.

[Mepps]

Nice fish!

[Rebel Angler]

great catch, nice fish

[endless]

thanks mepps and rebel angler.

im going back tomorrow for some more hopefully? heading to store to get another pair of forsets so i can have an easier time getting the hooks out. if anybody have any adive for fishing pickerels im all ears. only thing i know to do is live minnows on a bobber that seems to work for me.

[Helluva_Engineer]

Nice fish

Back in the summer I caught a smaller jack on a popper around some weeds, I was getting strikes on literally every cast from bigger fish, but they kept managing to lose the hooks(it was an old popper and they weren't sharp enough). I've heard they go for anything shiny so maybe try spoons to throw while you leave another rod out with a minnow.

[chromedog]

I hate them things, all they do is tear up your tackle, lol. 

We get them on spinner baits, jerkbaits, dropshots, swim baits (hard and soft), crankbaits.  Usually anything that moves.  But ya, pliers are a necessary when dealing with them.