George Adams wrote:
From: rw


Pickerel are a southern fish. They don't range into Canada. Therefore,
the Canuckistanis have no name for them.


I'm pretty sure someone's going to call me on this.) :-)


Consider youself called. According to A.J. McClane's Fishermen's Encyclopedia,
the Chain Pickerel is found from Eastern Canada through the Lake Ontario
drainage sothward, east of the Appalachians to Florida, and also in the
Mississipi Valley, as far south as Texas.

IIRC, in Canuckistan they are sometimes called "jacks".

Nope, you don't recall correctly. Jack is just another name commonly
used for northern pike. When I was a kid in Saskatchewan, just about
everyone I knew who fished called pike jacks. Now that I am older, I
call them hammer handles, slough sharks, and snot rockets.

The small pike (pickerel) do make it into Canada, but only in very
southern regions. I would say their distribution is southern, but that
perspective may not be shared by someone from Florida. One species does
occur in the Atlantic provinces. They are not terribly abundant, and I
don't think they are in any demand as a sport fish in Canada. They do
have a variety of common names, such as grass pickerel, grass pike, mud
pike, etc., but these aren't used a whole lot since they are not a very
common sports fish.

Canadian know full well that walleye (the big perch) are not really a
member of the pike family, we just don't really give a **** and keep
calling them pickerel anyway.

Tim Lysyk