Oh man did I have a great nights sleep last night, thanks to plenty of sun and fresh air last evening.

My fishing buddy Casey, from Hopewell Cape gave me a call yesterday afternoon to see if I wanted to go fishing that evening. I always laugh before answering a question like that because, well, why wouldn’t I want to go fishing.

Casey said he would here to pick me up at 5:30 pm. I said great, hung up the phone and was packed and ready to go in about 15 minutes and that included making a couple of peanut butter and jam sandwiches, my favorite.

I don’t mind fishing bass in the wind. Most of the places I fish for bass are stoney or gravel bottom. The wind seems to turn them on.

Lake Petit on the other hand has a silt bottom and when we got there the waves were high and the water was like chocolate milk, but did we turn around and go home, not a chance.

Heck a day on the water, even if once in a while we get skunked is better than sitting at home wishing we were fishing.

We head up river toward Salibury where there is less silt built up and managed to find a few spots where the wind couldn’t get at us so much but the water was still pretty stirred up.

I watched our lures and noticed the visiblity was almost nil. I had to have my lure right on the surface before I could even see it.

My first trip to one of my favorite spots almost ended with out doing any fishing. That would have sucked wouldn’t it?

The reason we decided to leave without fishing is because there was no place to get in the river without crossing private property and I won’t do that without permission, so we left.

When we backed out to the road we could see a car slowing down with their blinker on, so we waited for him to see where he parked.

He owned the first cottage so we stopped and asked for permission to continue down the lane and get in the river.

The old guy, about 80 I am sure was impressed that we were going to leave without fishing. He said most people wouldn’t have even thought of asking.

He gave us permission to not only get in the river from there he also gave us permission to park on his property so no one else would think we were crossing their property.

So, we thanked him and headed down to the river with our float tubes.

It took us about 15 or 20 mintues to get to where we would start fishing but later found that when the water was a bit lower we could walk there in less than 5 minutes.

I took my fly rod with me, along with my spinning gear of course. It’s always a great experience going after Chain pickerel with an artifical fly.

I caught 6 or 8 nice pickerel and a whole lot of little hammer handle sized ones. They all were fun of course.

I came back alone about a week later and headed back to the same spot but this time I was going to follow the water as far back as I could and what a trip that turned into.

The water was still a little high compared to later in the season so I was able to go a long ways back in and probably had my best day of pickerel fishing I have ever had.

I came back a little more than a week later and the water was low enough I couldn’t get back very far at all. I guess it’s a very short time that their is water in those places, but the pickerel know it’s there and hang out all spring.

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• Memories of My First Trip To Fish Pickerel in New Brunswick (thejoyofflyfishing.com)

Sunday morning and I was up at 5am, had a little breakfast and headed out to the backyard garden to get a few more veggies planted before it got too hot, like it was Friday and Saturday.

It was just after 9 and I was down to just 4 zucchinis left to plant before taking a break. That was when Jenny came out with the phone. It was Jamie asking if I was up for going fishing. Ha, am I up for going fishing, that’s funny.

Jamie said he would be there to pick me up shortly so I planted the last four zuchinni plants in record time, sure hope they survive, and then I was in the house to get ready to go fishing.

On the road to Chipman

I ask Jamie to stop at a bridge on highway 10, just before Chipman. I wanted to show him where I had my first pickerel and float tube fishing experience. It sure looks different without all the weeds choking it.

Even though it looks totally different that the day I first tried my float tube I still took a few pictures of the area. Just imagine it full of weeds with only a few pockets of open water. The put the temperature at about 30 degrees. Now you know what that day was like.

There were four of use with float tubes that day. Roland, Paul, Kerry and myself. The three of them were already familiar with their float tubes and were on the water in just minutes, while I was still trying to figure out how much air to put in the thing.

Now let me clear up a little point. They took off across the water without me but I deserved it. Why? Well I tend to be the first one to the water and almost always the first to catch a fish, so the boys tend to get a little pissed at me now and then.

So this was their opportunity to leave me in their dust and I mean dust. It was a really hot day and as they went through the huge weed patch they caused a small dust storm from all the dust on the weeds.

I finally got my float tube filled, I thought, and headed out. I should mention that back then I was also 60 pounds heavier than I am now.

I was doing fine until I hit that weed patch and then I came to a hault. It took all the strength I had to kick my way through those weeds, but they looked like it was a breeze.

Later I found out that I had not inflated my float tube enough. I had put in so much air that I though the thing would explode but it still wasn’t enough.

I got a major work out that day and the sad part was that we didn’t get as much as a strike there. Didn’t see a fish.

We headed back to our cars but I took a different route to avoid those weeds again.

It worked out good for me because I could fit my float tube in the hatch back on my car and when we arrived at Red Bank it only took me a few more minutes to float tube inflated properly.

Once I had it inflated correctly it cruised across the water and I was hooked on float tube fishing.

On another trip Kerry and I tried the other side of the bridge but again we had no luck at all. Perfect looking water for pickerel and nothing.

We went quite a ways into the background of the image above. Remember there was a lot of weeds, ideal for both bass and pickerel but we didn’t get as much as a strike. We did get one follow but that was it.

Again we packed up and headed to Red Bank where we had great fun as usual. Later in that day we packed up again and moved to another nice little spot for pickerel.