Sunday afternoon trip, 8-15

We had another stretch of hot weather here last week but a front came through on Saturday afternoon and things cooled off nicely for yesterday. I worked in the morning splitting up a bunch of firewood and packed things up late yesterday afternoon to see what might be biting on the pond.
I pushed off from shore at 4:30pm in to a light NW wind that would annoy me all evening. I expected it to slack off but it never did. Air temps at 76, water temp at 79 after the heat wave. Tossed out the 3 lines to troll and had the first crappie in the boat within 5 minutes, a nice 10 incher.

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They seemed to be in about 15' of water so I moved out a bit off the edge and slowed down to let the jigs run a bit deeper and found good action from both the bluegill and crappie.

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That darn breeze keep moving me off my line and twisting my boat, requiring constant course corrections as I trolled along. I had just gotten straightened out and back to the correct depth when I had a solid take on the left side rod. I grabbed it and set the hook and the drag started to sing so I knew I was on to something more than a crappie. He headed to the right so I grabbed the other 2 poles and lifted them and let my other line run right under them in hopes of keeping them from tangling. Smart move on my part as this fish just kept on moving around the end of the boat to my right, pulling drag the whole time. Drag worked perfectly on this fight and after quite a battle, I landed this nice LM bass, my largest of the last few years, about 3 1/2 lbs. I estimate. Might be sneaking up on the 4lb. mark as he was very solid and thick; I don't carry a scale so this is just a guess. On 4lb. test line and a 1/32 oz. Roadrunner with a stinger tail, I was pretty excited to have landed him.

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More fish would follow as I headed back down the line. More crappie, bluegill and even a 10" yellow perch would be landed as the shadows lengthened.

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The bite seemed to slow as I got back toward my starting point and I called it a night about 7:30.

All told, I had one each of the bass and perch, probably 18-20 bluegill of all sizes and perhaps a dozen crappie; one small one of 6-7" but most were 10" and better. A fine night of catching after a week's layoff.

You sure are putting in a great Summer of fishing. Thanks for sharing with us. Between having boat problems and other life events I haven't been able to fish myself. I look forward to reading about your trips.