By Zach Peirce

It was about mid January when I sent a text to my good buddy and fishing adventure
partner, Jackson, that I wanted to dedicate a whole weekend in early spring to just target chain
pickerel on the fly in downeast Maine. Without any surprise, He was all in.
Why chain pickerel you might ask? My answer to that is, pickerel sit at the bottom of the
favorite fish to target on most anglers lists. This means more than likely I will have a whole body
of water to myself throwing to fish that very rarely see lures or flies. Also unlike the bigger
cousins in the esox family (pike and muskie), pickerel will eat just about anything at any time.
I met Jackson at the boat launch for scammon pond a little after 9:00. There was a
consistent breeze going across the lake so we set up a drift and tried to pull into any coves that
were blocked by the wind. I told Jackson to strip his fly at a good speed, not too fast, as well as
pausing it for 2-3 seconds after each strip. The water was shallow enough I also told him to look
for follows behind your fly. The bigger ones may not eat it right away, they’ll follow it almost to
the boat like a muskie. Right off the bat I hooked an average sized pickerel that spit the hook at
the boat. I took that as a good sign.

We weren’t getting much after that which had me questioning, how come? It’s a warm
day, the sun’s out, the water’s warming up, and the whole pond looks like a pickerel paradise
with weeds everywhere and very shallow water. We pulled into a cove that had good cover by
the wind. Jackson hooked another decent one and we started moving fish consistently.
As I’m changing flies I hear Jackson say “I have one following”
. I look up and I see the
biggest fish we’ve seen all day stalking his fly. He gave it another strip and the fish slowly swam
up, opened its mouth and the fly disappeared. Jackson set the hook and to our surprise it didn’t
stick. I said to Jackson “throw it out again!”
. He did so and the big slime dart re-appeared right
on the tail of his fly. We watched the fly disappear into its mouth again and this time she was
hooked! I went to reach for my net only to realize my net was still in the bed of my truck. As the
fish got closer to the boat we noticed something other than the fly in its mouth. I said to Jackson
“I think it’s in the middle of digesting another fish”
. We got the beast in the boat, put the jaw
spreaders in and sure enough there was about a 12” pickerel halfway down it’s throat. We got
some pictures and let it go. Jackson and I looked at each other and I said “day made dude! Day
made!”

We fished for a couple more hours catching some smaller fish and decided to head in
and get ready for the next day. Our plan was to fish orange lake in Whiting. A once famous
Atlantic salmon and sea run brook trout fishery damned up and now dominated by pickerel.
We got breakfast at the Anchor in Machias the next morning before meeting our friend
Dom at the UMM campus. There was on and off rain but no wind which is what I prefer. We
drove over to UMM, I parked along the pond road and left my truck running to go talk to Dom
before heading out. When I walked back to my truck to head out it wasn’t running and wouldn’t
turn on. Long story short the day ended before it started. It needed a new fuel pump and a tow
truck. While we waited for the tow truck we all fished the campus pond which I was convinced
only had tadpoles in it. To my surprise Dom was able to catch a small sunfish.

Even with everything going on we didn’t get skunked. With the next day being a damn
near tornado this would be the last day of our pickerel weekend. Luckily we had one good day
on the water.
Dom and Jackson dropped me off at the airline snack bar on route 9. I hung out and had
a mean grilled cheese while I waited for Stacy&Co to come get me. If you’re ever heading to
GLS on route 9 and need to stop, the airline snack bar is open and very fair priced! I’ll definitely
be stopping there more often on my travels downeast. Even though the weekend didn’t exactly
go to plan, it’s not one I will ever forget and it just gives me more motivation to do it again next
year! Stay tuned for part 2 next April!
Also if anyone is looking for an excuse to take their kid fishing, Kappa Delta Phi is getting
the UMM pond stocked with brook trout and holding a kids fishing derby in memory of our friend
Caleb Dunn. All information is in the picture below. Hope to see you there!