Windy day but landed a few this afternoon, 8-24
Finished up all my chores and decided to try my luck on the larger water that has more wind than I like to deal with. I was mentally prepared to deal with the wind today and that made a huge difference on this trip compared to the last one. I had my hands full so never got around to any pictures at all today, sorry to say. I launched at 3:30 and pulled off at 6. I was trolling 3 poles as well as tinkering with the finder, too. I started out with 2 stingers, the gray and the green with white tail as well as the gray/green tail paddle tail Mr. Crappie slabilicious. The paddle tail is substantially heavier than the stingers and I think it was running deeper; the first 6-8 fish all came on that line. I was doing my best to keep just outside of the deep weed lines but found no fish there, on any of the 3 lines. I sort of got blown out in to more open water and began to mark fish suspended at about 22', just above the thermocline at 25' or so. They turned out to be mostly bluegill, hitting hard and fighting much tougher than the usual crappie. It wasn't until I snuck up on a hidden point jutting out in to the pond basin that the stingers began to hook some gill's and the only crappies of the afternoon, 2 on stingers and one on the paddle tail. By the time I reached the other end of the lake, I had landed the majority of what I caught today; 3 crappie and around 20 bluegill. I got turned around and got the lines out to try Walt and Rich's trick of drifting fast over the basin back to my launch point but only picked up one more bluegill that way, on the green/white tail stinger. I don't think I had enough weight on the jig heads to keep the lures down in the strike zone. I did mark a few fish here and there but think I wasn't deep enough to interest them.
A worthwhile trip despite the wind as I boated a few fish and learned a bit more about this body of water for the next time.
