Swartswood, Day 2

My wife allowed me to go out a second time last weekend and I headed out late Sunday afternoon.  I started paddling out around 5:00 PM and had most of my action before 7:30.  This time I decided to fish with some medium size minnows on my lindy rigs.  The water temperature was still very high, teetering around 84 degrees.  I went back to my same spot but this time elected to slowly paddle up and down the bank and I tried to stay in about 15 to 20 feet of water.  It didn't take me long and I hooked up with a 22 inch pickerel.  It was an amazing fight and a lot of fun!  He hit my minnow in about 16 feet of water and when he hit it, it felt like a big log at the end of my line.  That is, until he started moving.

It was no more than 20 minutes later and I hooked up with another big fish.  This one was significantly bigger and he just played around with me, letting me pull up from the depths until he got within 5 feet of the kayak.  At which time he would take off and we repeated this dance another five times for over 6 minutes.  I never got to see him, but whatever he was he had some teeth because he bit through my lindy rig liter right above the hook.  I don't believe there are any northerns or musky in Swartswood Lake, so it was either a bigger pickerel or a large walleye.  I want to say it was a bigger pickerel based on how he initially struck my lindy rig and how strong he was when he went on his runs; there was not a lot of head shaking on his side of the line.