Monday Off

I have been lucky enough to have Sundays and Mondays off since starting my job.  Sarah works a lot including Sunday but has been trying to take Mondays off.  So we try to do something on Mondays weather it is cleaning the house, going to Plymouth, getting up early to watch the sunrise or any number of other things.  Well today we were both shot from a long week and a long weekend so we slept in and then relaxed all morning.  I starting getting antsy around 11 or so I made lunch and with Sarah reading I decided to go hit the water for a little while.  I thought maybe I could find a late season bass or two but with only a couple light hits I decided to go to the shallows and look for pickerel.  

They were near the top soaking up the sun but that made them spooky.  So with lots of frustration after scaring a bunch of pickerel and the fact that at 3:30 pm the sun was starting to set I headed to one last cove near the road.  I set up and started to look for places that a pick could sit and wait to ambush a bait fish.  After making a good cast with a light landing I gave a couple strips and saw the wake moving toward my muddler minnow.  I kept my retrieve cadence the same and then it happened.  Pickerel have one of the fastest takes in fresh water.  When someone says lightening fast I do not think of lightening because you can see lightning, I think of a pickerel finishing a strike.  The strike happened and I set the hook hard after a head shake I knew I was hooked up.  

Pickerel have a fast, aggressive and often times violent attack followed by a big head shake.  I am told the bigger fish will continue to fight hard but the smaller guys tend to give in after the head shake.  Today I took an old fiber glass rod (its like a wet noodle) and an old Martin reel so that added to the fun of the fight.  This fish was about 13 or 14 inches but it too gave in pretty quick.  Once I got it on the canoe I understood why.  It had a hook in its mouth where it had taken someone rig from earlier this summer.  The hook was pretty rusted but did not snap when I gave it a light tug.   So I trimmed the extra mono back as far as I could and told this little guy to be careful as I released him back to his weeds.  To put a great end to the night before Sarah had to go to work she read me a section of her book that had us both crying in laughter on the couch.  So not a bad Monday off if I do say so myself.