Well another fun day of fishing with Casey and Jamie on French Lake has come to an end. The only thing that stopped us was the fact the big light in the sky ran out of energy for the day so we decided to go home.

Even though the wind was fairly strong and of course always blowing in the wrong direction we still had a blast. There was enough cloud cover so we weren’t frying all day and plenty of wind so that the bugs had to hang on to trees so they didn’t bother us.

Who could ask for more, eh?

The ride up in Casey’s truck was full of joking around and teasing each other but of course once we arrived at French lake things got serious. NOT. That would just be strange see three guys in a fishing boat being serious.

Casey hooked and caught the first fish of the day. For a perch it put up quite a fight but Casey still managed to land it, even without the use of his rubber net. Sadly that had to hold him for a while as Jamie decided to take over.

Casey lands the first fish, a feisty little perch with an attitude.

Now Jamie’s first fish could have eaten Casey’s perch but even so Casey had the bragging rights for catching the first fish.

The score was now one fat perch for Casey and one long skinny 22.000017 inch pickerel for Jamie. I was still in practice mode, I guess.

Jamie’s pickerel trying to flip out of his hand

Then for a while the two of them were going crazy with strikes, although they weren’t landing any. Casey is in the back of the boat, Jamie in the front with me in the middle and I can’t get a strike at all. It was time to change baits.

Jamie landed a second pickerel, a little smaller than his first and Casey was trying to figure out why the pickerel were not getting the point he was presenting. They just wouldn’t stay on his hook.

Casey was trying a new lure he had just bought the day before but the pickerel just seemed to smack it with getting the hook. After a bit he gave up and tried another bait and landed himself a nice pickerel.

Eventually I had practiced enough and got my first strike and first pickerel.

It always amazes me how three people can be in a boat, fishing the same water, structure and weeds with two people getting attention while the third is completely ignored by the fish.

Sometimes we go fishing and one person royally kicks butt and yet we’re only a few feet apart.

We had a lot of action as well as fun of course.

My biggest catch for most of the day was 19 inches. The majority of catches seemed to be right around 19 and 20 inches but my last catch of the day was my best at 22 inches.

Smiling Jimmy with his biggest fish of the day.

At this point is was dark, very dark. Sure glad Casey knew where the heck he was going because I would have had to stay out there all night waiting for daylight to find my way back.

At the end of the day the final score was Casey with 8 Chain pickerel plus 1 fat perch, Jamie with 10 Chain pickerel and myself with 15 Chain pickerel. I may have started off slow but gain ground over the rest of the day.

Another great day. We got home just about midnight and I’ll tell you it didn’t take me long to pass out once I got home.

Related articles

• Pickerel Fishing Salmon River From Grand Lake To Past Chipman (flyfishinginnewbrunswick.com)
• Cassidy Lake Pickere Fishing 2011 Part Two (flyfishinginnewbrunswick.com)
• Cassidy Lake Pickerel 2011 (flyfishinginnewbrunswick.com)

Casey invited both Jamie and myself for a day of fishing Friday but Jamie had already been invited for two other fishing trips and had already commited to a two day trip on Oromocto lake.

I love fishing new spots and Ormocto lake if a first for Jamie. I hope you have a lot of fun and had a couple of very productive days.

Last year Casey had fished the Salmon river from Grand Lake up towards Chipman with a friend and had great fun and wanted to do it again on Friday.

I was certainly up for that, it was my first time fishing the Salmon river. I have fished a couple of bays off the river but never spent any time in the river.

He was here to pick me up about 6 and we were off.

I alway look forward to passing over the bridge at the Cannan river just before highway 10.

Cannan River Was Just Like A Mirror

We took a few minutes to stop at the bridge where I first used my float tube. It’s so much fun using the float tube as I can get into spots that most boats can’t get to.

Checkout The Scenery

I remember that day was about the hottest of the year. I was niche to be so close to the water as it was easy to soak myself to keep cool that day.

Here’s what that area looked like once we were at the water.

Breath Taking View And The Fishing Rocks

We stayed for a couple of minutes taking in the view and then it was off to the Chipman boat launch and Salmon river pickerel fishing.

Chipman Boat Launch

Everything looked perfect. The sky was a bit cloudy which would help to keep that blistering sun off us. Of course I still piled on the sunscreen as I burn so easily.

The wind was, well there was no wind at this point. Who could ask for more?

After a couple checks around the boat to be sure we hadn’t forgotten anything we hit the water.

All Well, Let’s Launch

Before we headed down river I suggested we try a little bay just up from the bridge, about 2 minutes.

The Water Temp Was Low

With all the rain we’ve had the water is still high and to my surprise the water in the river was still only 64 degrees, all day long.

When ever we moved into a cove or bay the temp would go up about 2 or 3 degrees but not much more.

Well Casey landed the first pickerel of the day and as it turned out the biggest pickerel of the day at 24″.

It’s so cool that Casey has a rubber net. The lure he was using had two treble hooks on it and the line was around the pickerel’s mouth a couple of times and hooked right into the net.

Took about 4 seconds to untangle it. On the old net we may have needed to cut the line to release the fish quickly.

By the way Jamie has a nice rubber net now as well. The really are much safer for both the fisher and the fish.

Casey made a cast to a set of lilypads and the water exploded, just the way we love to see it. Really gets the blood going, even if it’s not your fish.

Love Fishing To Lily Pads For Bass And Pickerel

Before we were done in this little bay Casey had 4 pickerel and me, well I was taking pictures I guess.

I never had as much as a follow for hours.

We trolled down the river all day but never had a follow or a strike while trolling, none at all. The only places we caught fish we in the coves and bays along the river.

Casey stayed at 4 pickerel for a while giving me and my new Ugly Stik Lite combo a chance to catch up.

I was enjoying the distance I could get with the Ugly Stik and Shakespeare reel so of course my first strike was about a hundred feet out into the weeds.

I’ve had lots of practice getting pickerel out of the weeds as it’s my favourite place to fish for them as they tend to get quite explosive in the weeds.

As far out into the weeds as I was I was pretty sure I’d loose it before ever getting it close to the boat. However my new rod had the backbone to keep the pickerel’s nose up and I actually landed it.

Felt really good on my new rod and reel.

Before long I was tied with Casey, 4 pickerel each and I was pretty proud of that after going for hours with zero fish. That didn’t last long as about a minute later Casey hooked into another pickerel.

What a show-off. I would never do that to a buddy. Ha

What’s Up With The Wind

That was about when the calm water ended and the wind picked up. I really do prefer to fish the weeds in calm water as I really enjoy watching them come flying out of their hiding places.

I never get tired of watching the wakes they make, especially when there are two or three going after the same baits.

Even though the wind picked up we were shaded most of the day with lots of clouds. I didn’t mind that at all because when the sun did come out I heated up pretty quickly.

All in all it was a really fun day, as usually when I’m out with Casey or Jamie.

I’m already packed for the next day on the water.

Related articles

• Chipman Chain Pickerel on Canada Day (thejoyofflyfishing.com)
• Canada Day, Chipman And Chain Pickerel (flyfishinginnewbrunswick.com)
• Cassidy Lake Pickere Fishing 2011 Part Two (flyfishinginnewbrunswick.com)
• Saint John River, Harts Lake And Some Smallmouth Bass And Pickerel Fishing (flyfishinginnewbrunswick.com)
• Cassidy Lake Pickerel 2011 (thejoyofflyfishing.com)

I love watching underwater videos of fish doing their daily thing. I fish for smallmouth bass, a variety of trout and Chain pickerel and would love to see some quality video to see how they sit in wait and how well they are hidden in various types of cover and structure.

Here is an underwater video from Underwater-Ireland.com Youtube channel. I imagine pike live and hunt pretty much the same way chain pickerel do.

Some of the water I fish for chain pickerel in is very merky water and I’m not sure how far I’d be able to see underwater.

I was thinking about putting my rather inexpensive camera in a clear plastic bag and trying to get some video over the side of the boat. Maybe I’ll give it a try the next time I’m out on the water.

Enjoy the video.

Related articles

• Fishing Smallmouth Bass on the Saint John River, New Brunswick (flyfishinginnewbrunswick.com)
• Canada Day, Chipman And Chain Pickerel (flyfishinginnewbrunswick.com)
• New Horton Lake Fishing June 23, 2011 (thejoyofflyfishing.com)

If you’re a proud Canadian I sure hope you enjoyed doing something you love on Friday.

I enjoyed my Canada Day fishing the Chipman area with a Jamie and had a great day.

Here is some of what took place in Moncton on Canada Day while Jamie and I were enjoying the fishing off Salmon river.

Thursday evening I checked my email, right after checking my little veggie garden. There was a message from Jamie. All it said was, “Call me when you get this message.”

I was dialing the phone within seconds.

In case you’re not sure who Jamie is he’s the owner of FishingFunInNewBrunswick.com and he loves to fish, maybe even as much as I do.

Fishing Fun In New Brunswick

I think I wanted to leave right then but finally we decided 5 am was a better time. He probably heard from Jenny, my lovely wife, that I snore like a freight train. Ha, she lies.

Set the alarm for 4am but didn’t need it as I was awake long before the alarm went off.

Everything was ready the night before so once I gulped down a bowl of home-made granola, a banana and a hot cup of Java I started pacing the floor hoping Jamie would be early like my friend Casey is.

He was about 15 minutes early and all my gear, clothing and food were ready in the driveway. We were on the road by 5am and fishing about 6:30am.

Was That Fog Or Heavy Rain Clouds

As we came up over a hill on highway 10, the road into Chipman we saw a huge mountain that wasn’t there the last time we were here.

Well it turned out that the mountain was a mountain of fog which we quickly moved through and from then on it was clear sailing all day.

Is That A Mountain Ahead?

As we came around the corner to where we planned to start fishing we could see that the water was like glass. Man I love it when it’s like this.

Perfect Day For Fishing The Chipman Area

Jamie backed down to the water and in just minutes we were fishing. It’s so much faster when we can get the car close to the water so we don’t have to lug every.

As you can see in the image above the water was very calm. This is the type of day I love getting out the top water baits.

I know I say it all the time but man we have some beautiful scenery here in New Brunswick.

Breath Taking Scenery in New Brunswick

Friday was cloudy which helps keep the heat down a bit but even better their was little to no wind all day making it easier to control the canoe.

I have been fishing this area for more than 20 years and always take new fishing friends to this area as I am seldom disappointed.

I practice CPR, catch, photograph and release so we don’t keep any pickerel at all. I have caught thousands of pickerel along the Salmon river over the years.

I think I was practicing my victory pose early but I was feeling like a champ already.

First we fished at Redbank, my favourite spot to start fishing pickerel.

We started on the riverside of the road first before moving through the culverts to the other side for a while.

Jamie guided the canoe through the culvert so I was the first to get to the other side and of course got that first cast. I wasn’t disappointed.

That almost makes up for the day Jamie got the first cast toward the culverts and hooked and landed a huge smallmouth bass. All the years I have fished there I have still never caught a bass.

Such a show off.

I landed a nice little pickerel on the first cast. He was just sitting there waiting for a meal. We actually had a number of strikes here, even a few perch.

We called it quits here early afternoon and headed to Gemseg and the Saint John river for a try at some bass fishing, but that’s for another post.

When we arrived back home at about 9 pm where we drove into rain and by the time we got to Moncton we could see they got a lot of rain. I am sure my little veggies were very thankful for the rain.

I ended my Canada Day watching the Moncton fireworks from my bedroom window as I drifted off to sleep with a big smile on my face thinking about my day of fishing.

Related articles

• Cassidy Lake Pickere Fishing 2011 Part Two (flyfishinginnewbrunswick.com)
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Cassidy Lake Pickerel Fishing 2011 Part One

Casey landed his first pickerel and had the biggest grin on his face. Not sure if it was because it was his first fish of 2011 or because it wasn’t me with the first fish.

Ha, maybe a little of both. I sure hope it’s not a sign of things to come for 2011 as he just kept catching them and smiling, a lot.

Casey was using minnow baits with blood red hooks and what a huge difference it made to the fish catching.

I didn’t have any lures with the blood red hooks and they just weren’t interested at all.

He kept offering me lures, even ones with red hooks but I don’t like losing other people’s lures so for a time I just said thanks but didn’t use them.

Well after Casey’s 7th fish to my zero I was willing to lose one of his lures. Errr I mean use one of his lures.

Finally I hooked into a monster. Well maybe not a monster but I am sure it was all of 12 maybe 13 inches, it just thought it was bigger.

Fishing Tip of the Day: If you haven’t given blood red hooks a try yet you don’t know what you’re missing out on. Casey was smart and started replacing the hooks on his baits at least a year ago.

You can be sure I will be ordering some red hooks to replace my existing hooks.

I will tell you that if you invest in lures with blood red hooks or buy new blood red hooks for your lures you just might get a whole lot more action.

Casey couldn’t seem to do anything wrong Friday, even though it was Friday the 13th.

Even though I started catching pickerel they were few and far between for me. Casey on the other hand just kept catching them.

A Great Day of Pickerel Fishing

I was still determined to catch some pickerel on lures without red hooks. After all I fished for many years before red hooks and did great.

Well I did manage to catch a few more using a perch pattern and ended my day with 7 pickerel and a sun burned face. It really looked like I was most embarrassed about getting my butt kicked.

I believe that Casey landed 25 pickerel by the end of our day. So he caught the first fish of the day, the most fish of the day along with the biggest.

I am already looking forward to my next trip to Cassidy Lake. I had kind of forgotten about the lake once we started pickerel fishing the Chipman, New Brunswick area.

I guess there’s just not enough time to fish all the places I love as often as I would like.

Maybe I will get more fishing in once I retire in a couple of years.

Casey, thanks for the great day of fun and I love what you’ve done with your boat. It’s going to be an awesome summer.

I was so itching to get out fishing after the long white winter we had. So when Casey emailed me earlier in the week to see if I was up for a little fishing trip for Friday the first thing I said was DUH!! .

Casey was heading to Cassidy Lake, which is the first place I ever fished for pickerel. I have some great memories of fishing there with my fishing buddy Roland.

I don’t think I have been to Cassidy Lake for about 20 years or more.

I didn’t get a lot of sleep Thursday night and was up at about 4am checking to make sure I had everything ready including lots of water and munchies.

Memories of Cassidy Lake

The first time I took Roland there, about 20 or more years ago, we were fishing from my canoe. The action was hard and fast all day long.

My best for the day and my personal best for until just last year, was a 24″ pickerel, however Roland’s vert first pickerel, ever, was 26″ long. I am still working to beat his record.

Even though he hooked the record he was about to touch it, not with all those teeth. I teased the crap out of him the rest of the day of course, but he still had the record.

Last year, 2010, on a trip Casey took Jamie and I to French Lake, New Brunswick I did catch a 25″ pickerel beating my own personal best but I’m still working on beating Roland’s personal best.

Maybe in 2011.

Heading To Cassidy Lake, Friday 13th, 2011

We have had a lot of rain but the weather girl said we might see some sun on Friday so it seemed the best choice of the week.

Casey picked me up and we headed out. The sky was still dark with a thick layer of clouds and as soon as we were out of Moncton we had to turn on the wipers.

When we got to Cassidy Lake it was still as dark and heavy looking as when we left.

Gloomy Day on Cassidy Lake New Brunswick

We came down the big hill toward Cassidy Lake, the image below, and the rain stopped. Just like that. The sky even seemed a little brighter as soon as we pulled into the boat launch.

Maybe it was just our enthusiasm.

I stepped out of Casey’s truck and immediately put my winter coat on. Then I took it off and put on my neoprene waders and put my coat and toque back on. The wind coming off the lake was cold.

Casey did all the safety checks and we launched the boat. Our first day of fishing for 2011 had begun.

Note: I didn’t catch a single fish using my favourite red worm I write so much about.

Pickerel Fishing Cassidy Lake New Brunswick Part Two

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• Tying A Few Flies For New Brunswick Chain Pickerel Action On The Fly (thejoyofflyfishing.com)
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Look out Chain pickerel, we have some extremely hard to resist flies that have your name on them. But fear not as we always practice CPR, catch, photo and release and sometimes a little kiss just before we send you back to family and friends again.

Hey, we’re trying to take a picture here.

Casey and Jamie have taken me fishing so much in past few years I could never say thanks enough but in that time they have never done any fly fishing for pickerel so you can imagine my surprise when Casey emailed asking if I have any flies for chain pickerel. I am so looking forward to 2011.

My first adventure for pickerel on the fly was with my fishing friends Roland and Paul. We headed out on a little body of water I won’t mention here but we were in our float tubes. At the beginning it didn’t look like we were going to catch anything making us wonder if there were any fish in this place.

Once we reached the opposite side from where we launched our float tubes we had our first attack and then it was non-stop for hours and hours. We didn’t hook into any large pickerel on this trip but we did get into numbers that had us laughing for most of the day. I showed Jamie this little spot as we passed it on our way to do some trout fishing on the fly and I am sure we will be there with the float tubes this year.

Some of the flies we used on that trip were small brook trout dry flies, the same kind that I caught my very first pickerel with. They worked really well. Of course we had to a few Atlantic salmon flies, like the Mickey Finn. They worked as well but the three of us really love the top water action so we went back to top water flies like deer hair bugs and poppers I tie for the smallmouth bass I fly fishing trips.

I am going to be tying a few of the flies I have mentions, enough for Casey, Jamie and myself but I have also been looking online to see what other flies I might want to tie that will attract more chain pickerel.

Wooly Bugger Leech Pattern

I really like the wooly bugger, leech pattern and so does the chain pickerel here in New Brunswick but they didn’t last very long as we were fishing without any leader and I lost the only two wooly buggers I had. So I will certainly be tying a few wooly bugger patterns for the three of us, however this time around I will be sure to use some fluorocarbon leader and maybe keep those flies longer than one cast each.

Tip For Fishing The Wooly Bugger – It took me a little while to figure out the best retrieve for the wooly bugger but the minute I got it right I had immediate action. Kind of like the pickerel was looking at the leech and wondering why it didn’t swim right. Once I started giving it about 6 inch stripes and pausing they would strike and strike hard.

I am going to start with the wooly bugger and I will tie up a hand full of those. Then I will look up a pattern for a popper for next week and tie some of those. At that time I will add another video showing how it’s tied. Untill then enjoy the video and hope to see you on the water.

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• Fly Fishing Chain Pickerel in New Brunswick (thejoyofflyfishing.com)