7-26 evening trip

I went back to that pond I fished about a week ago that was so high and muddy last time. Air temp at 85 and water temperature was 76. Very hazy and mostly calm air; the haze is from the fires out west and you could actually smell the smoke, too.

I have to row over a good size patch of grass to get to the deeper water on this pond. As I was going over this grass, a good size snapping turtle (12-13" diameter shell) bobbed to the surface ahead of me with a good size fish in it's mouth. I've never seen that before and stood up to get a better look. Turned out to be a good size crappie, perhaps 8" or so; turtle had the fish's head down his throat. He submerged down on to the top of the weeds where I could see him. By the time I got the camera out he had disappeared so no picture but that was pretty neat to see.

I pretty much trolled along on the same line I did last time but my results were much better.

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Lots of bluegill like these 2 were caught and released last night. That 1/32 oz. Roadrunner with the blue/black/chartreuse tail was a winner last night. The orange colors that worked so well on Saturday morning didn't do so well today. They did get a few here and there but I felt the fish might be looking for a something other than the orange hue. I clipped on a Southern Pro curly tail in the same color scheme as above; turned out to be a good choice. I also clipped on the green/white tail stinger that I use so often and would leave that on for most of the trip as well as it landed bluegill, crappie and 3 large yellow perch of about 11".

What little breeze I had to deal with died off for good shortly after 7 and the water became flat and calm. The crappie began to bite about that time and all 3 lures would begin to bring crappie in to the boat. Some casting around was tried and some fish were caught but trolling seemed to work the best.

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For the most part, crappie would be 9-11", no real small ones tonight. Totals for the night would be upwards of 30 'gills and pumpkinseeds, 10 or 12 crappie and 4 yellow perch, 3 of them very nice as mentioned above. I left them biting at 8pm and headed for home.

Congrats on a productive evening

Congratulations again. You are having a banner year thus far. Hope it continues for you. Keep it up. Tight lines.

That's a busy evening. Way to go.

Nice to see such a great evening of fishing!

I know what you mean about the smoke and high water -- it's the same here in southern Vermont. Oddly the rest of the state is in a pretty bad drought, but we've been inundated with rain down here near the Mass border.

Unfortunately, I've been having a hard time finding crappie on the Connecticut River here. Just one yesterday, about 9". They are not in the regular places I used to catch them. Seems like a continuation of last Fall. I did notice that the one crappie I caught yesterday did have evidence of Camallanus worms. And I found that the crappies I caught last year had them, too. I wonder if that is causing the reduction in numbers? Or maybe I'm just not fishing right!