Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss fishing for pickerel question

Hi all, I am not sure if anybody here might know but I am going to pose this here for your opinions. While I know there are Pickerel and Yellow perch and LMB in the lake/river I fish in it is very choked with numerous weeds. I am guessing the depth top be fairly shallow though I have only been out in a canoe one time. There was no noticible clear channel between the weeds to indicate a clear area. So my question to the fishermen or fisherwomen ? maybe just fisherpersons....
is have any of you tried just using a spinner like mepps and maybe 8 or nine feet of line from the tip of the pole and just lifting the lure up and down in the spaces between the weeds and trying to hook a fish on the rise and fall with a spinner like that? I'm curious if that would work?Or is there a better lure I might try because I get weed boud a LOT.

Never tried fishing with a spinner that way...

My two favorite lures for fishing weed choked lakes like that for pickerel are the Johnson Silver Minnow and Mepp's Timber Doodle. Pickerel will happily whack the snot out of either and they are both very weedless...

Also, I like to use a weightless plastic bait rig:

From http://washingtonlakes.com/

The weightless plastic bait rig is very weedless as well.

Rig it with a Zoom Tiny Fluke or another favorite of mine a Flash Worm

These lures will also catch bass, pike, walleye and others...

If the weeda aren't all the way to the surface, you could also try a spinnerbait or buzzbait. Cast and retrieve the spinnerbait so it is just under the surface of the water causing a bulge in the surface as you retrieve it. Start reeling as soon as it hits the water, and keep the rod tip up high, you can reel a bit slower with a higher rod tip.

I'll second the Johnson's silver minnow for pickerel. Best lure ever made for weed choked water. Used them all the time when I was a kid and caugth some great fish in weedy lakes.

If you use one, try it just like it came from the store, then try it with a 2" or so strip of white porkrind as a trailer. It might make a difference, it might not.

I agree, trailers on the Johnson spoons can work great. Pork rings, plastic spinner bait trailers, even a plastic curly tail worm...