Report; and wetting a line!

Been awhile for us reporting - and wetting a line! The persistent rain & cold have preventing us from doing just that. However, after receiving almost 4" of rain yesterday (this is getting ridiculours!), the sun finally made an appearance today and Walt & I decided to give it a whirl.

We hit a local Oxbow lake off the Ct. River flowage, but all the rain had risen the water level way too high in the parking lot for safe boating. The ramp was completely submerged. So, we opted for another lake - the same one we last reported on, Hampton Ponds.

Finally we launched around 9:30 am, with the air at 43 degrees and the water at 46. A stiff breeze out of the northwest, which didn't help our enthusiasm - but it is what it is....and we were already there, so what the heck! LOL!

Here is what the conditions looked like when we launched:



Tough conditions, but we "perservered", as the old indian once said (I believe that was in the movie, Josey Wales?). Started off slow, but things picked up as we would motor up wind and used a control drift (side pulled with the TM) our jigs over the main basin. We switched from straight tails, to paddle tails, and 1/16 oz. up to 1/4 oz. ball heads. And of course, Road Runners! Here's what the sonar showed us out deep:



Plenty of fish were there and the bait. When we pulled off at 11:30 am, we had caught & released 15 fish; 9 crappie, 3 bluegill, one yellow perch, one LM Bass and one dandy little rainbow trout. Nice mixed bag, under adverse conditions. All caught using 2# test line too! Here are some of the fish we caught, starting with some of those that Walt caught:





Here's a couple of mine:





A couple of the crappie we caught & released, floundered on their sides, on the surface of the water. We were entertained with a bald eagle coming down and scooping one of the them up for his breakfast! We also had a couple of appearances from the local osprey and even a blue heron. All good stuff! Here's another shot of the foliage for you folks:



All in all, not a bad way to spend a couple of hours doing what we love to do - fish for crappie! And what better way to do that than with a fine fisherman such as Walt. Unfortunately, it looks like our opportunities to wet a line will be limited; from the cold, the rain and eventually the snow! We'll keep plugging for as long as we are able to. God Bless you all....and God Bless America.