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Finally got another chance at them, 10-26
Time to fish has been hard to squeeze out lately but after working around the house doing fall chores I loaded up and hit the water about 3pm. I had hoped to go 1st thing this morning but I could see the wind was already up so I did the chores with hopes that it would lay down some in the afternoon and it did. Air temperature was upper 50's, surface water temperature was 52-53. After getting the poles rigged, I headed out in search of some schools. I didn't expect much action trolling but just a few minutes after tossing out my lines I had a hard hit on the split tail. 1st fish was this big rock bass; nearly 12" long with a big ol' fat belly. He was a real porker!
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A long dry spell followed before I landed my first crappie of the day, also taken on the very slow troll.
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I expected to be finding schools, marking them with a buoy and casting to them rather than trolling. I found them OK, but couldn't entice them to bite by casting to them. I also found that they seldom stayed by marker; I'd push back to them after getting blown off and they would have moved. I finally gave up on marking and casting to them and simply slow trolled all over the pond. These 2 fish were all I got......until about 4:30 when things really picked up! I had been marking fish all day throughout the water column and changing lures left and right trying to find something that would work. Turned out to be that split tail, the Tennessee shad Southern Pro stinger and a Stinger shad style in some sort of chartreuse, not sure of the color name.
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The good bite lasted about an hour and when I pulled off just before 6, I'm guessing I'd landed a total of 18-20 crappie, from a short of about 7" up to 11" or so, all on the slow troll. I found many nice schools, most were suspended at 15-18' over 22-26' of water. None up shallow at all, not even a perch. All crappie tonight except for the rock bass.
All in all, a very nice late season trip here in New England. I've got a feeling there won't be too many more.
