Thread: Had another good trip last night, 7-25

Hit the water about 5:20 and made 2 complete passes of my trolling pattern/area without hooking a single fish. Water temp was about 78, air temp about the same. Sort of surprised me; I figured it would have been a great night for getting some while rowing around. I finally landed my first crappie on my 3rd trip through and tossed him in the cooler. He looked pretty lonely in there for a while. I noticed the water had calmed down quite a bit over on the shady side and quietly eased over and set up in the deeper water on the flat so I could cast to the weed lines and work it back. This was just what they were looking for last night as my 1st 3 casts produced 3 nice crappie's of around 11". Green body with the while tail was my offering and they were all over it for the next 45 minutes or so. I tried the Tennessee shad gray version and landed a small bluegill or 2 then switched back to the other. I quietly worked my way up and down about 100 yards of shaded weed line, hooking calico's and bluegill at regular intervals. The couple who I'm guessing owned the house up on the hill were sitting at water's edge enjoying the evening and watching me score. I joked that my wife and daughter would now have the fish fry that they'd been wanting and he asked what I was catching; I told him and he said that they'd looked like nice ones from where he was sitting. I told him I had an extra pole and he was welcome to come and catch a few if he'd like. He chuckled and said maybe another time and that they were actually enjoying watching me catch them and was surprised at how many I was catching. That first crappie had lots of company by the time I went back to trolling. While I didn't get a lot while moving, the ones that did hit were all in the 11-12" range, really nice fish. The bluegill that I caught last night didn't have much size but they sure had a lot of fight; I enjoyed the heck out of hooking them. Biggest was between 7-8", the others were smaller but very energetic.
I lost a really nice one at boat side before I could grab my net; he looked to be the biggest of the night. They were still biting when I packed it in about 7:45; I looked at that cooler and knew that I had a lot of work ahead of me to get them ready for the freezer.
I ended up with 16 keepers, threw back 3-4 dink's, landed and released 10-12 'gills. Never thought to take a picture while actually fishing but snapped this cooler picture once I got to shore:

Super evening. Great results. Keep up the good times.