What do you guys call a pickerel? Can you post a pic? A pickerel in these parts is a walleye. But I am pretty sure that that is an Ontario thing.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

I'll post one from a couple weeks ago. I fish offshore in my kayak when the conditions allow it. Pic of a king mackerel here:

This is a pickerel. Basically looks like a northern pike, but do not grow large. Largest I saw was 12" long that that was a big one, for a pickerel.

https://www.britannica.com/animal/pickerel

They are not common at all, but a few of the backwater swamps I fished in North Alabama had them.

Not a walleye.

I did hear the term "walleye pike" growing up, but they were referring to walleye or sauger. We had sauger in Alabama, relative of your version of a walleye:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauger

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Wife and I just got back from camping/flying fishing/rafting trip out West. Spent some of my filty Afghan lucre to do it right. Started out in 11 Mile Canyon above Colorado Springs--really love this place and the fly fishing is superb. Very satifiyig to catch a nice fish on a bambo rod you've built with a fly you've tied





While in Afghan last rotation i was reading some article online about "10 rafting trips you have to take before you die" and one of them talked of rafting Gunnison Canyon in SW Colorado and how few people run this river due to restrictive put in allocation by Forrest Service and *how good the fly fishing is within the canyon* Called up Mrs H that night and said "hey guess what! we're gonna raft Gunnison Canyon this fall when i get back."

This was a three day two night glamping trip. Not camping. It was staight out glamping. Three boats with a couple aboard each and and equipment boat that would scoot ahead during the day to set up a lunch and then do so again in the afternoon to have camp set up and cocktails set out for when you were done at end of day.



you had to haul your shit about 2 miles from final road end down to the put in point on the river. This was A LOT nicer than arriving by parachute when all you have to live off of is out of the ruck you jumped in with (usually that is mainly: water, batteries, ammo, socks, a woobie, and a little food.)


Company had hired a pack train outfit to pack their rafts and equipment in down to the put in the day before and one of the guide/rowers had spent the day blowing up the rafts and getting them set up before we hiked down from the rim the next day.

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Steve

Got the stink off the boat right away right at the put in place. Sweet!







What a beautiful venue. The four rafting guides rotated each day so we had a new rower/guide in our raft each day. All of them were excellent. The food was excellent. The fishing was excellent. Mainly Bows but no small amount of Browns and even one beautiful CutBow.





I used the rafting company's Sage Foundation rods while doing this fishing. They are much faster action than my bambo rods and you needed a quick rod for this type fishing




One of the two other couples on this trip was Steve and Mindy. Steve is a retired USAF PJ and Mindy a retired cardiac nurse. Very cool couple. They met four years ago while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. 1200 miles. Steve said he met Mindy about the 400mile mark and walked with her for the next 800miles so getting married at the end seemed like the right thing to do.



Started out each morning with cowboy coffee you had to pour thru a strainer. Good stuff.



Did i mention that all the meals were first rate?



Final morning drinking coffee before breakfast and a beaver swims by the boats with a willow branch. Most beavers you see these days are shaved--but this one was a natural in its element




Mainly it was just glorious fishing and rafting. Three days we only saw one other party. A group of kayakers blasted pass us and that was the only other humans we saw for three days. Last day we did a run--had to stow the rods--of about one mile wherein we dropped over 1000' Mostly class III rapids with two class IV runs. What a hoot. Glorious fishing



/r

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Steve

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Steve

I caught a 6lb pike this year on the July trip. He was sliced up and eaten by the group.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Thanks for the pictures!

I’ve kayaked that stretch twice and it is gorgeous. One time I paddled through the upstream section in Black Canyon NP which is perhaps the coolest place I have ever been- but super sketchy class five some of which you have to run blind and you have to carry your boat through jungles of poison ivy for a few miles in the middle.

There were fish everywhere there though!

I came for the fishing, but stayed for the beaver.

Great report as usual. Thanks for sharing.

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That looks really fun Steve, can't wait for my boys to get just a little older, we will be all over a trip like that. I didnt see any fish on the plate, was this catch and release? Not that the steak there was not looking super yummy! Thanks for the pics and story, we need more of this here..

How do you go about slicing up a pike without a zillion bones in em? I like eating fish I catch but pike are crazy boney.

You’re asking the wrong guy. I didn’t gut it. But from what I gather there’s a way to do it without getting all the bones.

But again, it isn’t me who does the fish gutting. I couldn’t care less if we eat fish or not so I leave that to the guys that want to eat fish.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Great pictures.

Thank you for the recap of your trip. That place looks beautiful.

Thank you for your service also.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

What weight and length rod did they put you in? 9'? Hatches were probably good this time of year and the water was fairly low.

I did that Gunnison float about 10 years ago. Great time. I want to go back and DIY sometime in my cataraft before I'm too old to manage it.

It's cool you got to go on a trip with ZZ Top

Had a fun day yesterday up here in Oregon doing some sturgeon fishing (catch & release)! We measured the big one at 10 feet long, estimated weight was ~600 lbs.

Wow!

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Steve

Very cool prehistoric fish.

Heading south to Key West in a few weeks to do some bonefishing on the flats and maybe catch a shark or two.

Always good to be on the water.

Yeah, I have never fished for them previously or really known much about them. Pretty cool experience to see them up close and personal yesterday. I've never felt the type of power the big guy had. It took 3 of us rotating twice to get him to the boat (an hour fight) and my arms are SORE today. ha! Guide estimated he was ~60 years old. j

Key West would be great! I've never really done any deep sea fishing aside from Halibut in Alaska. Have fun!