Thread: Interesting trip this afternoon, 9-26

I promised myself that I'd be going fishing this afternoon provided there were no rain showers in the forecast. Looked a bit iffy for a while but I packed up and hit the water just after 3. There was a bit of a breeze here at the house but at water's edge, it was noticeably stronger. We're starting to get some fall colors around, too.







Not a lot and certainly not impressive but summer is over for sure. I clipped on some Stingers and got ready to do battle with the breeze. I was in to fish right off the bat:





The bluegill were very active today; most of the marks I saw on the sonar were just a foot or 2 off the bottom once I got out away from the weed line. No matter what depth I was in out to around 22', they were just suspended up that foot or 2. 16-20' seemed to offer the best action for them. There were hitting my Stingers hard, all 3 colors. Most were in the 8"+ range, fighting hard and biting often. Took nearly an hour for the first crappie to come in to the boat. It came as I doubled up on strikes and I didn't get a picture. I really had my hands full around that time as the annoying breeze had blossomed in to real wind; I fought it all afternoon. It had me twisting and turning every which way. However, I think it worked to my advantage as I seemed to get a lot of hits just after getting the boat straightened out again, as though the herky-jerky movements and changes of speed and direction were provoking them in to biting. Surprisingly, I kept my cool and just went with the conditions and enjoyed the bluegill action. My 2nd crappie also came as one of a double and I wasn't able to snap a picture of him, either. Here is another snap of one of the nice 'gills I was landing today.



I lost 2 very nice crappie right at the side of the boat, just as I was leading them in to the net. Both would have been 12" or a bit better, really nice fish.
Total for the day would be upwards of 30 bluegill, 1 big yellow perch and the 4 crappie, 2 landed, 2 lost. Tired of fighting the wind, I called it day about 6:15 and headed for home.

Oh, and one other little thing. Not long after I got on the water, I heard a pretty loud engine rev up; looked around and spotted this white bellied gas hawk TAKING OFF FROM THE OTHER END OF THE POND!



That's a first for me while fishing! I never noticed it parked down there at the other end when I got on the water.