Enough to chill

What an unusual spring! Daytime temps well above freezing for this time of the year in over a decade - sustained that is. Today Walt & I hit a small local pond with anxious expectations. Air was only 38 degrees when we launched around 10 am, with the water actually warmer at 43 degrees. Cloudy conditions, with winds light and variable to calm at times.

We mainly targeted shallow water at the first major drop off. Shallow being around 6', dropping to 11'. Surprisingly, we found the crappie actually at the surface with their dorsal fins out of the water! The schools would move in and away from us from time to time. When they were close enough to cast to, it was guaranteed you get bit.

I'm sure they were feeding on baitfish as there was literally no sun to speak of to warm them (or us!) up. I took this quick snapshot of a school of bait that passed beneath where we were anchored:



We mainly cast our lures today, with straight tails, curly tails, paddle tails and Road Runners. The straight tails produced the best for us this morning, as is the expected norm for us. (I gotta say I was impressed with the results I got from the Crappie Magnets.) This was my first use of the Diawa Presso 7'6" UL rod. I was very pleased - especially with the way it performed while bringing a big pickerel in close to the boat after a rather long fight (2# test line).

The light breeze was enough to chill us to the point where fun became "not so fun", if you know what I mean! So, we pulled the plug around 12:30 pm. Tally was 18 fish for the couple of hours we were there. I landed two small pickerel and lost a very big one boat side (thankfully!), with the rest being crappie.

Here are a couple of pics of the crappie we did catch. No big ones, but they sure felt good pulling on our lines after several winter months of abstinence!





All in all not a bad way to spend a couple of hours with a fine fishing partner. The small boat performed flawlessly and all is well in the universe once again. God Bless America!