This is a great lake for Pickerel. I went out at roughly 7:00pm and fished for 30min caught three 19+ in pickerel. They are rarely fished so the fight and hits are fun and unexpected. I would really recommend this to anyone who is nearby. Very good night and will be doing it more frequently! I wasn't aiming for these pickerel though, what is a good bait? Also how do I prevent these fish from choking it? 

I sometimes target chain pickerel in Hamburg Cove, which is off of the Connecticut River near its mouth. The average pickerel in the cove seems to be 23 inches long and the biggest one I've caught there was 28 inches long. When I target them, I use spinnerbaits. No leader is required.

 

At certain times of year in certain lakes, it's tough to get past the pickerel to hook a largemouth bass. I fished in a kayak tourney 2-1/2 weeks ago and one poor guy caught 15 pickerel and no bass. I boated about six pickerel and shook off several more, but managed to boat 18 bass by fishing very, very slowly.

 

Up in Lake Champlain, the northern pike are big and a lot of fun to catch, but my favorite ones to catch are the pike-pickerel hybrids. They're almost the size of northern pike, but fight like chain pickerel; they never give up.