pickeral bonanza

[mcfish82]

Hit my local pickeral paradise yesterday...got 3 pickeral n' one bass...had 2 pickeral saw me off b4 i could get em in and had a few more strikes that i missed...fun times!

http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy222/matthewmcknight82/DSCF1002.jpg

http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy222/matthewmcknight82/DSCF1014.jpg

http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy222/matthewmcknight82/DSCF1021.jpg

http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy222/matthewmcknight82/DSCF1016.jpg

http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy222/matthewmcknight82/DSCF1019.jpg

http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy222/matthewmcknight82/DSCF1027.jpg

biggest one of the day...this baby inhaled my zara spook like a freight train!
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy222/matthewmcknight82/DSCF1029.jpg

http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy222/matthewmcknight82/DSCF1024.jpg

lake was choc full of tadpoles...they were thick around the entire shoreline

http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy222/matthewmcknight82/DSCF1015.jpg
saw this crazy lizard...this thing looked like something u see in florida...ran fast and had an orange head...anyone ever see one of these up here?

[Tony Cav]

Dude...Great shots......I think that's a skink of some sort.........never saw one but have read that they are native to the area...very cool.

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/ensp/pdf/lizards.pdf

Love me some pickerel fishing......First love as a kid......was the only thing I could catch with any consistency .....Johnson's weedless silver spoon.

Drag a canoe up in that spot! Great to see the tad poles too!!!

[Mike M]

Thanks for the great report. Nice pictures.

[AndyS]

Gotta love the "Ol salad bowl !" Cool report, thanx.

[catfishonthelake]

Definitely a skink. I think the five-lined skink is the only species of lizard found in NJ. If not, it's one of the only ones. They have a blue tail that they shed when threatened. The tail keeps wiggling on the ground to distract the predator while the skink runs away. They grow back. I've seen a bunch in Passaic, Warren and Sussex County. Very fast and tough to photograph. Nice find.

[acabtp]

yep, skink. pretty common for nj. i see them from time to time, but on one hike up to lake sonoma last year (near monksville) and there were a ton of them sunning themselves on the rocks.

[mcfish82]

hit the same lake today and saw 2 more of those skinks...they are pretty darn cool...never saw em until i started fishing this place...fished the same lake and it was too damn hot...fish must have ran for some deeper water...had 2 blowups in the pads but missed both fish:cool: