Getting ready to go fishing with some great friends.

Casey emailed James and I midway through last week asking if we would like to go pickerel fishing at French Lake.  James and I obviously both said yes.  I think I said yes first but we will have to ask Casey that.  Casey picked me up first and we were at James’ house by 7am.  We arrived at French Lake by 8:30.  As we were arriving, Casey said his friend Ron might join us for the day and if he did not bring his son Casey asked if one of us would fish with Ron on his boat.  I said I would, so Ron and I were against James and Casey in a friendly competition to see which boat would land the most pickerel.

Being near the end of September the water was 58 degrees when we started fishing around 9am.  James and Casey took off down one channel and Ron and I stayed out on the main channel.  Ron was using some red senkos Casey bought for him through Ebay.  This is reminding me I need to buy more as I am completely out of red ones myself.  Ron caught two very nice pickerels right off the bat.  I had a couple of hits but that was it.  Ron and I continued to make our way down the lake.  Ron was pretty steady at catching pickerel and I landed two by the time Casey and James came back from the channel they were fishing.  This was about an hour into the morning.  Ron had 6 pickerel in the boat, I had two, Casey had four, and surprisingly James had none.

The two boats separated again and Ron and I continued around the bend.  James and Casey were in front of us and disappeared around a corner.  Ron and I spent some time in an area that was right in front of another channel.  Ron was trying some different baits and he had fantastic luck in this spot.  He must have landed ten pickerel in about an hour or less.  I was getting strikes but only managed to land two pickerel.  James and Casey came back and said they only caught a few more and then made their way down the channel that was in front of us.  Ron and I fished in our same spot for another half hour and then decided to follow them down the channel.  I had never fished this part of the lake so I was interested to see what it looked like.  The wind was at our backs and help pushed us down the channel at a decent pace.  Going down this channel Ron and I got into a lot of pickerel.  Yes, you read right, even I got into some pickerel.  Some were hanging close to the banks, probably sunning themselves to get warm and some were out a little ways.  By the time we caught up to James and Casey Ron had a whopping 36 pickerel landed and I was reaching a respectable 13 pickerel landed.  I say respectable because I was stuck at four and five for most of the morning.

Casey with a nice pickerel.

It was close to 4pm and Ron said he had to leave so I jumped into Casey’s boat and joined the two of them for another two and a half hours of fishing.  I continued to stay hot ending up landing 22 pickerel for the day.  Casey also landed 22 and James caught on fire and ended up with 26 pickerel landed.  His 25th pickerel was his best of the day measuring at a coincidental 25 inches long.  My longest of the day was 22 inches.

James with the 25 incher and Casey being Casey

I had a great day fishing with a new fishing buddy in Ron.  He had a great boat with a 40 HP motor and he also had a trolling motor at the front end of the boat that he could control with a foot pedal.  If anyone has a front deck on the their boat I would strongly suggest getting one of these trolling motors.  It did a fantastic job putting us exactly where Ron wanted to put the boat.

Me and my pickerel.

I do not think I mentioned this yet but Ron and I won the competition for the day.  We said we would certainly all have to get out again next season.  Casey mentioned that maybe we would even get out one more time this season.  I certainly hope that we do get the chance.

Me being very content with another excellent day!

Again, if you are ever interested in going chain pickerel fishing I strongly suggest giving French Lake a try.  The four of us landed 106 pickerel for the day.  I would say that was a pretty good day of fishing.

Please read James’ post on our day as well.

As this year’s fishing season is quickly (and sadly) coming to an end I was sitting here tonight thinking what my favorite days fishing have been this season.  I hope to get out a couple more times but I will have to wait and see if that happens.  I can not honestly say if I can only pick one day as my favorite.  I am extremely lucky that I am a vice-principal and get the summer off.  This allows me more opportunities to get out fishing than a person that works throughout the summer.  I also need to say that this summer is probably the summer that I got out fishing the most in a very long time.  I thank my wife for allowing me to go so much this summer.

Every day was great in it’s own way but  I think I can narrow down my favorites to three.  I know that is not one, but I think I need to mention all three.  I will mention them in order that they happened.  Back in May my friend Matt invited me to go to First Eel River Lake to go fishing for a Saturday and Sunday.   I certainly accepted his invitation and we spent the two days fishing for bass and chain pickerel.  We spent most of our time fishing for smallmouth bass.  We had a great two days of fishing, stayed at a fantastic lodge, and I met three new fishing friends.  Even though it was early in the season we got into lots of bass and had a great time trying different baits to catch them.   We did have some issues with it getting windy but we were still able to have a great time fishing.

Number two on my list would have to be the day James, Casey and myself went to French Lake to do some pickerel fishing.  We had planned to get together for a day’s fishing and it finally came together this summer.  We arrived bright and early and fished all day.  Again, the wind played a factor, as it was very windy for most of the day but in Casey’s 16 foot aluminum boat we were fine.  We spent the day fishing the weeds and also trolling.  We each caught plenty of pickerel and perch.  The best part of the day was being able to share it with two other people.  We spent the day teasing each other, talking, and also listening to music, as Casey has a cd player in his boat.

Number three on my list was the day that Glenn and I went salmon fishing.  This was the third time that we went salmon fishing together this summer.  We spent the day on two different stretches of water.  Together we hooked into seven grilse.  Glenn landed his first grilse of the season on this day and I landed my very first salmon ever on this day.   It was a great day weather wise and I was very excited to see as many grilse as we did.  I almost landed one earlier in the day and then landing the other one put an end to a fantastic day.  Playing these two grilse has given me great experience and I feel the next time I hook into a grilse I will have a much better idea of how to fight it properly.  I hope to get out salmon fishing one more day before the season comes to an end but we will see if that happens.

I am writing this to explain my three most favorite fishing days of the season but I would also like to ask what your favorite fishing day of the season was for you.  I would love for you to write a comment describing your favorite day as I always like to hear other people describe their time on the water.  I look forward to reading your comments.

I own a 13 foot canoe that I have used for the past 3 or 4 years to go fishing.  It certainly gets the job done for the places that I take it but this summer I have been able to get out fishing with a couple of friends that own aluminum boats.  Being in these boats really has me wanting to get one myself.  They are more comfortable for a days fishing, bigger so they can hold more people, are more stable in the water, you can fish on bigger bodies of water and not have to worry as much if it gets a little rough.  With the canoe we have to take it to places that are quite small in case the wind picks up.  We had the canoe out on French Lake last year and the wind picked up and we had to get off right away because it was not safe.  I also figure if I get a 12 or 14 foot aluminum boat I would be able to take my girls fishing with me more because the canoe can only fit two people and it is not really that stable and I would not be comfortable taking them on it.  For all these reasons I have started looking around for aluminum boats.  A website that has been a great asset in my search has been Kijiji.  I am sure most of you have heard of this site. It is a site that people list items they are looking to sell.  If you see something you like you make contact with the seller and go from there.  You do not place bids like on Ebay.

When I first started using Kijiji in my search for an aluminum boat I was only using the Moncton listing as I live in Riverview.  One night I decided to widen the range and started looking in Fredericton and Saint John as well.  These places are only a couple of hours away and certainly would be worth the drive if I found the boat I wanted.  I guess I was not thinking when I was only looking in the Moncton area.  In Kijiji it is easy to change the location you are looking in. You just click on the change button beside the city you are currently looking in.  Just before I began writing this post I did a search on Kijiji for for aluminum fishing boats and I found at least 5 in these three areas that caught my attention.  This is a much better process than looking in the ads in newspapers and asking people if they know anyone selling an aluminum boat.

I have been out in my friends aluminum boats four or five times this summer fishing for chain pickerel and bass and have had an extremely fun time in them and as the fishing season comes to an end I will continue to use Kijiji to look for aluminum fishing boats throughout the fall and winter as perhaps there will be newer listings as people might be looking to sell their boats after this season and perhaps some aluminum boats already listed might come down in price.

If you are in the process of looking for an aluminum fishing boat I would strongly recommend using Kijiji as a tool in your search.