It’s been many years since we’ve had a real snow filled winter here in Moncton, New Brunswick, a winter we can call actually call winter. So far there has been enough fresh snow to keep the old dirty snow covered up so it looks like a real picture postcard winter.

Picture PostCard Moncton Winter

Usually by this time of year I am wishing winter was gone but this year I don’t feel that way, well not yet anyways. Kinda reminds of when I was a kid growing up on the farm and gives me that nostalgic feeling. I never get tired of winter, just the shovelling, although I am really missing fly fishing days on the water, warm water.

I looked out the front window this morning and noticed Geoff, our neighbour, was already gone but when I went out to the street to take the picture above I noticed his car was there I just couldn’t see it from the window. All I could see from the window was a piece of his front porch, but no car.

Geoff’s car is buried behind my lilac trees.

The snow in our lilacs has piled so high it hid Geoff’s car from view. He’ll be so happy to see even more snow and I’ll be hearing his snowblower soon.

Time For Our Own Snowblower

I never really minded shovelling and could burn through it pretty fast. Today, not so much as the ole ticker doesn’t work like it used to back then and my heart doctor says no more snow shovelling if I want to see another winter.

I don’t like seeing my wife have to shovel while I stay indoors so I think it’s time for a snowblower. I am sure I can handle a little snowblower.

This is the first year that we have had to dig a trench so Honey, our pitbull, can get out to do her business in the yard.

She really doesn’t like it when she can’t see over the snow, it tends to make her bark when she can hear what’s going on but can’t see it.

She’s a rather spoiled pitbull and can’t understand why we would make her do her business in deep snow.

We have our own snowbirds living in our backyard, but I have the feeling they either headed south for warmer climates, or perhaps they are hybernating but they certainly aren’t shovelling.

I have been watching as the snow has built up on the bird house and can’t believe it could get this deep without being blown off.

I love the fact that I work from home and done have to go out into nasty weather if I choose not to. I can just sit in my office and watch the snow get deeper and deeper, dreaming of next fishing season.

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I spent my childhood years in Ontario, back in the 1960s and was led to believe that walleye were called pickerel. It wasn’t until I was 30 and had moved to New Brunswick that I caught my first pickerel and learned they are not even the same species. What was that all about?

Pickerel also go by “federation pickerel” and in southeastern U.S. they are nicknamed “southern pike”.

Caught My First Chain Pickerel on The Fly

I feel lucky having hooked my first chain pickerel on the flyrod. Because it was a happy accident. A friend and I were actually fishing for brook trout on the fly.

Fishing A Flooded Forest on The Fly Rod

It seems like a very long time ago I had been visiting a flyfishing friend. Wayne was going to show me a little spot he wants to keep quiet about. He told me we would land some large brook trout on the fly.

When we arrived I could hardly believe that he expected me to actually use a fly fishing rod in there. The place was a stand of trees that had been flooded a couple of years before after busy beavers had blocked the flow of water and flooded a large patch of woods.

Wayne told me there were 16″ brookies living there. I didn’t call him a liar nevertheless I’d been considering it. However I became a believer soon after he landed the first 16″ brookie.

Fishing in trees was a brand new experience. I’d fished rivers and lakes for brookies using my fly rod, had even learned to deal with trees behind me but not a forest all about me.

I spent most of my time avoiding trees but did get some brookies. As usual when it comes time to leave I always have to get a few more casts. The second I lifted the fly off the surface for my final cast a pencil like 10 inch fish came flying out of the water and grabbed that dry fly.

I couldn’t imagine how intense that tiny fish was. That is the day I discovered the difference between a walleye and a pickerel.

Today I fish pickerel any chance I can. My personal best continues to grow from that first 10″ chain pickerel to 25 inches.

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When I’m fishing for smallmouth bass or chain pickerel in open water and along weed beds that drop off into deeper water I like to use crankbaits. I especially love to toss my crainbait into opening in the weeds as I am usually rewarded with a huge explosive strike in those hot spots.

I will cast to the shallows close to weeds and bring it back to the deeper water. And if the water drops off quickly I will pull it right along the edge of the weeds for really explosive strikes.

It wasn’t until I moved to New Brunswick that I experienced smallmouth bass fishing and later chain pickerel fishing. Before that it was strickly trout and salmon.

That’s when I started buying a few crank-baits, spinner-baits and plastic worms.

Fishing Crankbaits

My fishing buddy Roland and I were in my boat on Lake George just past Fredericton, it was really windy, so the top water baits weren’t doing much so I switched to one of my brand new crankbait.

Fishing A Brown Shrimp Crankbait

I remember it was brown with some darker brown stripes going down the sides. It cast a country mile and would float until I started cranking on it. Then it would dive anywhere from 3-7 feet depending on how hard I cranked it.

On my first cast the crank-bait was smacked hard and then again on my second and then it seemed like I couldn’t use it without getting strikes.

Guess how many of those I purchased?? Just one because I bought a variety of lures that day and just one of each. Roland didn’t buy one of this particular crankbait and I didn’t have one to loan him.

I kicked his bass fishing butt royally that day.

The crankbait quickly became one of my confidence baits and still is today. I went and bought another two, one for the tackle box and one I just in case Roland didn’t get a chance to buy one.

I used that crankbait until all the finish was worn off, leaving it a matte silver colour and it was still caught bass, which I found strange because I had a silver one that didn’t catch anything much at all.

Then one day I made a very long cast, probably the longest cast I ever made. It went straight across the water and into the trees on the bank somewhere. Never did find it. Guess I didn’t tie that knot as well as I thought.

That crankbait had hooked hundreds and hundreds of bass and pickerel and lasted for a few years before I lost it.

The second crankbait lasted for many years as well until one day Casey and I were bass fishing Lake Petit and on the very last cast of the day I lost it, the same way I lost the first one. The line snapped and it went so far I couldn’t find it. Bummer

A couple of years after I started bass fishing we gave chain pickerel a go and I used the same crankbait in open water along weed banks and found that they love that crankbait as much as the smallies do.

Check out the Rapala Crankbaits on FishUSA.com

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Some of my sport fishing friends here in New Brunswick and I really enjoy fishing for smallmouth bass all season long, but the fall season is without a doubt the best time of year as this is the time of the year smallmouth start on that final feeding frenzy to fatten up for the lean winter months.

I will say that spring is my second most favourite time of the year but it’s largely due to the fact I’ve experienced quite enough winter by then.

What Makes Fall Such Good Fishing?

As fall approaches the water temperature in rivers and lakes begin to drop which causes the weed beds to die off slowly which in turn decreases the level of oxygen in the water.

The lower levels of oxygen in the water sends the bass looking for more oxygen rich water which usually means they will be stacked up around healthy weed beds. This makes it much easier to locate them if you focus on finding the remaining healthy patches of weeds.

Testing The Waters

The last time I was out Bass fishing in the fall there were four of us. I wanted to test the waters as they say so I didn’t tell my buddies that I was only going to fish green weeds.

At the end of the day we compared notes and I had hooked and landed 4 times as many fish as two of my buddies. The third guy did the same thing as I did and only fished spots that still had healthy weed beds.

Mmmm That Looks Tasty

It’s at this time Smallies tend to be less discriminating than they can be at other times of the year due to the fact winter is fast approaching and now is the time to put on some fat for the winter months. Smallies are inclined to chase almost any baits at this point in the season. I have observed them go way out of their way to reach a lure in the Fall.

I truly do take pleasure in casting in the lily pads for Smallmouth bass at any time but particularly throughout the Fall once patches of weeds which are producing oxygen begin the process of to die off. For the duration of those fall weeks I really watch the healthier weeds still making oxygen.

Smallmouth bass are cold blooded therefore as the temperature of the lake water lowers the Smallmouth will slow down as well so it’s necessary to slow your baits as well. You will find that you hook up with a lot more Smallmouth’s.

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Smallmouth bass fishing here in New Brunswick is great fun but I am sure I would be having fun fishing smallies just about anywhere.

Bass fishing is always fun with my spinning gear but what I really enjoy is fly fishing for smallmouth bass. They are almost as much fun as Atlantic salmon but a whole lot easier to get the strike.

To make bass fishing even more exciting you have to try it from a float tube. My first fly fishing for bass trip was to Lake George New Brunswick on the hottest day of the year.

It was so hot the fish seemed to shut right down so we had to hunt for locations where the water temperature was cooler so I suggested we make the mile long trip to the other end of the lake.

My fishing buddy wanted no part of it, it was just too hot. Then I suggested we use the car to take our float tubes to the other end of the lake. He was down with that.

The other end of the lake has so much more rock, weeds and lily pads for the bass to get out of the direct sunlight.

My fishing buddy for the day was kinda dragging his butt. I admit it was hot and I wanted to find some shade for myself but I was more interested in seeing if I could get a smallmouth to strike.

I was a good 10 minutes away from Kerry. He was still puttering around the shoreline as if he was ready to go home. Then a huge bass hit my top water Deer Hair Mouse – Size 1/0 and I yelled FISH ON. That got my buddies attention and he immediately perked up and headed my way.

From that point on we had bass hitting all day long, none stop. I had found the perfect spot.

These smallmouth bass were not really monsters by any stretch of the imagination but they were big enough to spin us around in our float tubes.

I have to get Jamie to Lake George next year. We wanted to go this year but the pickerel here in New Brunswick kind of kept us busy all summer long.

This post brought to you by Markel Boat Insurance

Like I said in the previous post, Casey, Jamie, Ron and I were fishing French Lake New Brunswick on Sunday and had a pretty good day. We caught lots of chain pickerel and even acted a bit foolish at times, well okay, most of the time.

We started of the day with Jamie in Ron’s boat and I was in Casey’s boat.

We moved to the middle of channel to head out to our first fishing spot. Ron and Jamie took off while Casey and I trolled to our first fishing spot.

It was about a minute or two of trolling and I felt a hard strike and it was gone, then almost instantly Casey had a fish on that doubled his rod.

He landed the first pickerel of the day and it wasn’t too shabby at 23 1/2″. We know how big it was because Casey has this cool invention, called a ruler, fastened to his boat for easily measuring fish.

That last little dig was for Jamie.

I, on the other hand decided it was probably better to save my energy for later in the day, so I didn’t bother landing any fish for the first few hours.

I did pretend to fish so Casey wouldn’t think I was slacking off.

Casey landed 4 pickerel before I even got one close to the boat, but once I started I was on fire and soon caught to Casey. The last day we were out Casey had me 3 to zip before I got started too.

I caught a few pickerel that looked like they beat Casey’s 23 1/2 inch pickerel but once measure well they didn’t measure up. One particular pickerel looked like it would beat him but he looked at it and said 22″. I measured it and sure enough it was 22″.

Then came pickerel number 25 and it hit hard and didn’t come near the surface. It fought hard and stayed down, so of course I thought it was was big pickerel.

Jamie did his best to beat it to death with the net but it was a determined pickerel and a good hook set, eventually Jamie stopped smacking it with the net and I landed it.

When I measure it I started doing my happy dance as it measure out at 25 inches, a new personal best for me. I beat my previous personal best pickerel by 1/2 inch, which I caught at French Lake a couple of months earlier.

I am still trying to beat my fishing buddy Roland’s best pickerel at 26″ more than 20 years ago in Cassidy Lake near Norton. That was his very first pickerel every by the way.

Both Casey and Jamie tied at the end of the day with 22 pickerel each and I ended the day with 26 pickerel. Casey and Jamie also landed a perch or two.

You can see Casey cheering me on from the peanut gallery. Now I know why Jamie laughed and took a second picture of my 25 inch pickerel.

Oh Happy Day, A New Person Best for Jimmy

Jamie was in Ron’s boat for the better part of the day so I didn’t get to take any images of his fish. But once he was back in Casey’s boat he landed this angry pickerel.

Jamie’s First Chain Pickerel Once Ron Returned Him

I think Jamie landed another 7-10 pickerel and one perch once he was back in Casey’s boat.

It’s so much fun getting out like that. Great to have met Ron although I didn’t get much of a chance to talk as our boats headed in different directions for the day and only met up to brag about our catch.

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It was just over a week ago that Jamie and I hit Redbank, near Chipman, New Brunswick, for some more exciting pickerel fishing. I already wrote a post about our day but I took a picture of the two culverts and noticed that there was no water running through them. That was the first time I can remember no water running through them.

Looks Like Someone is Watching Us

I remember standing on the top of these culverts opening season this year and the water was less than a foot from the top. These culverts are big. I am 5′ 9″ and I can stand inside them with my arms raised and not be close to touching the top so the water was at least 8 or 10 feet higher than it is right now.

I sure was a lot easier getting to the other side with Jamie’s canoe but once the water was no longer moving through the culverts it became much tougher as we tend to keep the canoe loaded with as much stuff as we can carry. That meant we would have to almost empty the canoe to carry it across the road.

It was just on the other side of the culvert, where you can put your boat in that I caught my 23 inch pickerel the last time we were out. Worth the walk to the other side I’d say.

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