Report; 11/3/17

Well, here it is November and not only is there no ice, but no snow or cold weather to speak of yet either! One year, maybe a dozen or more years ago, we had a similar occurrence where we were fishing on Jan. 2! Can't count on that happening again, but I don't mind this weather one bit!

We were not able to launch on the river Oxbow that we usually fish, due to having received over 5" of rain in the past week. Water is half way up the launch parking lot. So, we elected to try what's called here as "Hampton Ponds". A series of ponds comprising a state park with about 200 acres of water to fish. We launched around 9 am this morning, with the air at a balmy 60 degrees and the water temp at about 58 degrees. Breezes out of the south at between 10 - 15 mph.

We hadn't fished this water for several years, so we were going at it cold turkey, so to speak. We started off on the main basin, casting the shallows to test various areas we had been successful in the past. NADA! So with the breeze stiffening, we decided to try drifting 1/16 & 1/8 oz. ball heads with various plastic dressings. We found some isolated pockets of fish:

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Had some bites, but nothing exciting, so we moved to the northern most basin which was deeper, going down to 30 feet or so. At the drop off to an island, we marked some decent fish and anchored up:

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But catching them was hit or miss, so we decided to try drifting that main basin. Too bad this was around 11:30, because if we'd have fished it sooner, we could have done much better I'm sure. Here's a shot of the sonar there, once we started drifting:

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Our catch ratio increased, but we didn't have time to get into it due to pending rain storms blackening the horizon. So, we had to pull off at 12:45 pm, just as the rain started. We ended up with only 13 fish, one of which Walt caught was very unusual, while drifting:

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Yep! A bullhead! LOL! How many of you have caught bullheads drifting for crappie in 17' of water? Incredible. Leave it to Walt! :)

Anyway, none of the fish we caught we big. But the place does show some promise. Hopefully, we can get another trip in there and try to dissect the pond more systematically. Here are some of the crappie we caught & realeased:

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These series of ponds are the homestead of a huge population of Canada Geese too. Here is one the many "tribes" populating various coves and points throughout the Hampton Ponds complex:

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Anyone want a goose for Xmas? (BG>