Angling
The chain pickerel is a popular sport fish. It is an energetic fighter when hooked. Anglers have success with live minnows, spinnerbaits, spoons, plugs, and flies, usually tied with some kind of feather or bucktail material.
If the angler intends to release a fish, it is advisable use pliers to flatten the barbs on the lure's hooks. Chain pickerel can swallow an entire lure, so it will be much easier to free a deeply-hooked fish and get it back into the water as soon as possible.
Practically any bass lure can be effective for pickerel, although like most pikes they seem to be particularly susceptible to flashy lures which imitate small forage fish. Dragging a plastic worm, lizard, frog, or other soft imitation can also be extremely effective.
A steel leader is necessary for sharp-toothed and active fish sizing two to three pounds. The angler would also do well to use 12 to 17-lb. test line on an open-face spinning reel.
Methods are similar to those for bass such as dragging a lure through weeds in shallow water and jerking it side-to-side to give it the look of injured prey. Chain pickerel are voracious and opportunistic feeders and will attack most any fodder that moves into their range of vision.
Read more about this topic: Chain Pickerel
Famous quotes containing the word angling:
“Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)