In the hierarchy of Esox, the chain pickerel sits squarely at the bottom both literally and figuratively. Compared to their big cousins, the pike and muskie, they don’t get much love despite being ...

I’ve been a fan of chain pickerel since I was a kid. That’s largely because where I grew up there weren’t any pike and even though there were some muskie haunts, those fish felt too unattainable. As ...

Pickerel can be caught year-round, but the prime months are November through April. In warmer months, pickerel seem to retreat to depths, weedbeds and pad fields. But as waters cool and vegetation ...

Back in 1845, when Henry David Thoreau first moved to Massachusetts’ Walden Pond to confront the essential facts of life, one such encounter involved chain pickerel. The philosopher got all gushy over ...

Sculling gently with a light wood paddle, I slipped up to the submerged brush pile. Reaching out with a 9-foot fly rod I ...