I hit the Quabbin

What a beautiful day! Walt & I hit the Quabbin once again, launching around 7:45 am. Air temp was a refreshing 55 degrees for a change. After 3 days in the 90 degree heat wave, it was a welcomed change indeed. Water was up around 82 degrees and the air was literally dead. Calm air with light thermals moving across the surfaces. This is what the launch area looked like:



And once we got out to the main body, this is what we were faced with:



Bait was very active on the surface just about everywhere, so we started out casting. Got a few, but nothing to write home about. Kicked on the side pulling TM and things started to pick up right away. The faster we moved, the more hits we got.

We started marking fish with bait just about everywhere:





As soon as fish appeared on the screen, POP! You'd get hit.

The air temp increased rapidly as the morning progessed, with little relief from any wind movement. When we pulled off at 12:45 pm, we had caught & released 88 fish; 9 bluegil and one small largemouth bass, with the rest being our target species, the crappie. No giants by any means, but good quality fish spread across the open main basin of the lake. Any kind of plastic with pink and chartreuse was the main producer today. Sliders and straight tails being the shapes of choice (the crappie's choice....not ours!). No takes on Road Runners this trip and after a few passes with a crank bait, I gave up and switched back to plastics. Here are a few samples of what we caught:











We watched as an immature bald eagle swooped down and snatch a fish for his dinner. And we saw no less than 5 whitetail deer along the shoreline. Been awhile since we saw this many. I wasn't quick enough to catch the first two, but I did manage a quick snapshot of the 3 on an island. The picture didn't come as well as I expected, but I think you will get the idea.



Great way to spend a few hours with a good fishing partner. God Bless America!