Pickerel Fishing in New Brunswick: French Lake
This was my secoond best pickerel of the day.
My Friend Mat and I were talking Saturday and decided that we would go fishing on Sunday. We decided to go pickerel fishing at French Lake. We went to the French Lake that is connected to Indian Lake about 15 minutes past Jemseg. There is another French Lake by Oromocto. Mat has a 12 foot aluminum boat so we took that. We arrived at French Lake around 9am. We used the boat launch on Sand Point Road. We went right and then turned left and made our way down the long channel and started fishing when we saw some lily pads. We got some action right away and I landed two smaller pickerel fairly quickly. I was using a red senko, which has been extremely productive for me this year pickerel fishing.
We then continued going along this stretch of the lake as I knew a couple of spots that I wanted to try. We got to a spot where you can continue in the same direction or take a left to go down another channel. We went to the mouth of this channel and dropped anchor and started to make casts to move edges of the lake. We were both getting good action around the lily pads but also by some grass patches in the middle of the water. We both must have landed 3 or 4 fish at the spot. We started to go this channel a little farther but the grass got very thick so we decided to make our way back to the main part of the lake. We then went to a spot that is a dead end and was productive when I was there about a month ago with James and Casey. We saw a few pickerel but nothing much as the water was quite low and the grass was very thick, which is normal for this time of year. We drifted down a little ways to a point just in front of another channel and we dropped the anchor. We were making long casts and started to get a lot of action. This spot was a little deeper but there was still grass in the water. We started landing quite a few fish and some of them were getting to be a fairly good size. Mat was changing up his baits quite a bit and was getting some success on different colors. They were hitting some orange, solver, and reddish worms. I was basically sticking with the red senko as it was still being successful.
We then decided to go down the other channel to give it a try. We did not get a lot of action until we found another point. We fished off this point for a bit and each landed two more pickerel. We decided that since we had such good luck back at that other point that we would go back and try it again. When we got there we anchored in the same spot and started casting again. Right away we got into a bunch more pickerel. This was right around 4 pm and it must have been their supper time because they were very aggressive. We also got into our biggest pickerel of the day. Mat caught two in a row that were very nice and then got a real nice one on. He fought it for a bit but then it snapped his line. The very next cast I made after this I had a really nice hit and I knew I had a very nice fish on my how heavy it felt when I was reeling it in. When we got it in to Mat’s net, which has rubber netting, we knew it was a very long and thick fish.
Mat with one his many pickerel on the day.
Casey will get mad at me because we did not have a tape to measure it but we did a rough measurement and we said it was 26 inched long beating by personal best by an inch and 3/8. As you can see in the picture it was a very thick fish and was great fun to catch. Before the second time we went to fish off this point Mat started using a pink solid tube. I had never seen them before and thought it would be productive because I have caught many pickerel using a pink senko. It turned out to be very successful for Mat as he ended up catching many of his pickerel using it and I caught that personal best using one of them as well. During the winter I will certainly being getting some for next season.
By the end of the day I would say we each landed around 20 pickerel. We had a great time on the water. As usual there was a fairly strong breeze but that was alright as it was very hot yesterday. We saw lots of eagles and other birds throughout the day. Near the time we were going home we saw some trying to catch some fish in the lake. We saw one dive right into the water and come out with a big pickereklbut as it was trying to take off out of the water it dropped it. It was a pretty neat sight.
My new personal best at 26 inches.
Thanks Mat for the invite and the great company as usual. I look forward to getting out with you again, if not this season, then next for sure. For anyone interested in pickerel fishing I strongly suggest French Lake in New Brunswick. James and Casey went to French Lake a few days after Matt and I went. Take a few minutes and read about their day.
Tagged with: aluminum boat • French Lake • pickerel fishing • senko
Filed under: Chain Pickerel Fishing
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
We will have to bring this fish up to the pickeral advisory board (me and Jim)to decide if it qualifies as a new record in our group. U will be advised of the boards decision after our trip to French today!!!!!!
Ha….I await your decision
I hope you guys had a great day today. I bet you were some hot. I hope you took lots of cold water. Let me know how you made out.
Glad you and Mat had a great day, would have been cool if all of us had been there with Red Senkos a flyin’
It was a scorcher yesterday, the hottest day I can remember, ever, while fishing. It took it’s toll on me but I would be back there in a minute.
I didn’t realize it until it was too late but my water cooler tipped over in Casey’s van and I lost a lot of it, so I was hurting by mid afternoon.
Tape Measure, what’s that??
Yeah, you should always keep a tape measure in boat or canoe. Let’s blame this one on Mat though as it was his boat, right.
I have a tape measure in my tackle box all the time, it’s part of my weight scale.
And of course I don’t bring that tackle box when we are fishing in the canoe, as it’s just too big and leaves no leg room.
Casey started out with 3 pickerel right away and I had zero landed. I just couldn’t get them to stay on the bloody hook.
I even tried to knock Casey’s fish off using the net but they were too well hooked and made it in the boat.
At the end of the day it was Casey with 21 pickerel landed and me with 33 pickerel landed.
We lost so many in the weeds, but we of course didn’t keep track of those. I am pretty sure I wouldn’t be far off if I said we lost a few dozen each in the weeds. It’s just so much fun casting where you know you’ll never get them out, just to watch the action.
The board was not able to ascertain a definitive response to this quandry. A dangerous prescedent could be set by accepting an “”estimation”" on the size of a fish when there are such valuable prizes involved. ( a cone of soft icecream is not to be sneered at or toyed with)Things were looking in your favor until it was mentioned that you are a Montreal Canadians fan. This information coupled with the fact that most fishermen are “”liars “” or greatly overestimate the size of their fish and equipment, led the board to the inconclusive decision. Further correspondence will be forthcoming in this matter. In the meantime the board recommends you purchase a seamstress cloth tape measure at Walmart which will fit in your vest or box!!!
It took us most of the day to come up with that decision and we must see proof of the fact you indeed have purchased a seamstress cloth tape upon our next fishing adventure.
Although if you are in Casey’s boat you don’t have to use it as he has a ruler with easy access to all in the boat.
Glad you and Matt had a great day.
I certainly enjoy our day of fishing fun with Casey. You can head over to my <a href="http://www.thejoyofflyfishing.com/flyfishing/new-brunswick/fishing-fun-on-french-lake-new-brunswick/"fishing blog and read a little about our day.
There you will also see who won the soft ice-cream for the day.
You give it to ‘em Casey.
Glad you and Matt had a great day.
I was starting to run short on red senkos, again, so when the pickerel started destroying them I didn’t just replace the worm. I started using pieces of the worms and to my amazement the pickerel hit them just as hard.
They were hitting the worms and ripping them off in pieces but when the worm got short enough they no longer missed the hook so I was actually catching more pickerel on pieces of red worm.
I have to pick up some trailer hooks like we had talked about. Casey brought it up and of course I had to have forgotten to get some and had zero in my tackle box that would fit over my worm hooks.
I think we should go fishing Saturday. I have a feeling there will be few boats on the water.