Ultimately, for the purpose of targeting them exclusively, pickerel are more willing to commit to a fast moving bait than most local freshwater fish. I usually alternate between some variation of 1-5 rips/twitches and then follow with a pause of 1-10 seconds.Īs you can see, the angler has a wide range of options that they can experiment with. As the weather cools, the old “rip-rip-pause” technique familiar to many striper fisherman becomes extremely effective with the jerkbait. This is especially true with the spinner bait and even sometimes with the jerkbait (since to a pickerel, it might as well be a fleeing minnow).

Other than a fast-stop-and-start retrieve, a straight and steady moderate retrieve all the way back to the bank will often get the job done if a pickerel is lurking in the vicinity. It's important to keep this mentality at the forefront if you don’t just want to end up with a bunch of largemouth (which wouldn’t be the worst problem to have).

I want to be clear that the “madman retrieve” is more of an initial search tactic or fallback rather than the default, but the point is to illustrate how willing a chain pickerel is to chase down a bait in a far more ferocious manner than your average bass. You might be surprised how many times a pickerel will shoot out of the weeds and hammer that bait right in front of you!

At this point, I will either give it a few light twitches, or just let it suspend for a second.

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