Homing Missiles

I had a freshwater fish do something yesterday that absolutely blew my mind. I was on a pond where the only fish big enough to target with anything bigger than a sz. 30 hook are pickerel. Somehow, someway, no largemouth have taken to this pond and the pickerel keep the bluegills in check. It's damn near a natives only pond if it weren't for those tiny bluegills. Anyway, the only fish bother trying to catch there are pickerel. The fact that there are only pickerel in this pond, no largemouth bass, makes me like it a lot. I enjoy catching big bass, and they often take very aggressively. But when a 20 inch chain pickerel commits to a big fly, it just unloads on it. They hit things to kill, often completely inhaling flies or lures without thinking twice.

Yesterday I watched a large pickerel leave it's post and move 30 feet to hit my fly.  It was unbelievable. The fly landed 20 feet from that fish. It turned and charged, locked onto the fly like a homing missile. I moved the fly 10 more feet, the fish closing the distance the whole time, and it unloaded on it, going from quick to blistering in a millisecond.

I missed that take. I was too shocked by how far that pickerel traveled to hit my fly to perform a proper strip set.

Some of the fish were exhibiting what I interpreted to be spawning behavior. 

Oddly enough, the fly that got a fish to move 30 feet didn't move a single other fish. I switched to a dull colored sort of muddler variation that I've seen called the "Bad Mother" by Domenick Swentosky. It's got no flash at all. I tied them for night fishing trout, which is what Swentosky uses them for. But I figured it would have a very slow sink rate, push some water, and that would get the snot rockets fired up. It did. I caught two good pickerel. Both fun fights, but the second one just felt... right. The strip set, the initial run, the multiple jumps... one of those fights I wish I had on camera. God dammit I love pickerel!