Morning trip, 6-11
It's been difficult to find time to get out and wet a line but this morning the stars were in alignment and I hit the water about 8:15. Air temperature of 61 and the water out away from shore was 72. Had a light wind from the North with mostly cloudy skies when I started out trolling 3 lines. Had the first fish in the boat within a couple of minutes, a hard fighting largemouth about a foot long. He fell for the Roadrunner with a Southern Pro stinger tail.
Not too long after releasing the LMB, I tied in to the first of many pumpkinseeds, nice ones of about 8" or so.
There was quite a bit of loose grass and other debris on the surface which made it hard to troll without fouling the lines. I gave up the trolling after a bit and went to single pole cast and retrieve with a few different lures. I worked the water over the submerged weeds and the action picked up nicely. The Road runner saw the most action at first, accounting for a good bunch of bluegill of all sizes from 4-8". Hooked and landed a bigger bass with it, too; gave me a nice fight but I came out on top. A bit over 14" for this one.
5 successive casts with the same lure earned me 3 bluegill in the 8" range along with 2 crappie, both between 10-11".
The wind slacked off about 10 and I had calm conditions for the next hour. Took me a while to realize I needed to switch lures as the Roadrunner was no longer scoring. Clipped on a Tennessee shad colored Stinger and the crappie really took a liking to it. I found a good group of them and landed 5 in the space of about 7-8 minutes. Biggest one was just over 12" on the ruler but I fumbled the camera and missed the shot (too blurry, I deleted it).
Wind came back up some, this time from the South and when it did, the bite shut down and I called it a day about 11:15.
No pickerel in the boat today but pretty sure I had a good one on the line, giving me a strong fight before breaking me off. I rolled him over out away from the boat and am pretty sure it was one of those toothy critters. Did land a nice 10" perch, too.
Totals for the day would be 3 bass, 1 perch, 14-15 sunfish and 8-9 crappie.
It sure was a nice feeling to be out there again, even better with some nice fish being caught.
Probably won't be out again for a while as I have some things coming up that will take a lot of my time after work. Hope I can sneak in a short trip here or there but I'm not counting on it for the next month or so.
Yes, I was talking to myself; sometimes even I have to ask for expert advice.