Thread: '23 season is under way! 4-13

Got on the water for the 1st time today. Seems as though spring has been a long time coming but it's warmed up a LOT this week and with the heat came thoughts of fishing.
Today's temperature made it to 82 here and I decided that's fishing weather, not work around the yard weather. I had gathered all my gear over the last couple of days so it only took a few minutes to load up and head out. It was mighty windy but I didn't care; I was going despite the wind.
I launched just about 4 with cloudless blue skies and lots of wind. Water temp about 57. My first fish of the season was an average bluegill, the first of about a dozen I'd put in the boat tonight. He came about 10 minutes in to the trip so it was a relatively quick start for me.


A small perch would soon follow. A total of 4 perch would be landed, all bigger than this first one, biggest at around 11" or so.



I was lucky and caught a lull in the wind, it dropped off to a breeze about 6pm and I had a perfect drift along the shore line, casting and retrieving rather than trolling. Most of the bluegill were caught during this time, as well as 2 bass of 9-10" each.



As I came to the end of that drift, with the wind pushing me around again I got my first crappie of the year and the only one of the night, a nice one of about 11" or so; estimated since I didn't have my measuring stick with me tonight.



Most of my catch tonight came on the 1/32 oz. chartreuse road runner head with a Southern Pro Tennessee shad color curly tail grub. You can't really see it in the pictures but that's what most of them hit. The water along that shore was about 60 degrees and maybe that's why the bite was more active. Once that wind came back up I didn't get much more action and called it a night about 7:15 or so.
It was a great start to the season in my mind and I'm ready for the next trip!

Great start to the season. Keep it up and hopefully many more good trips are ahead.