Thread: Not so hot bite, 7-20

Took a solo trip last night to one of my local ponds to see if I could find some action. I got to my fishing area and first line in the water about 5:45, air temp at 83 and water temps about 81.
The first 15 minutes brought me 3 small bluegill and by the time I ticked off my first hour I had boosted that to 5, with only 1 pumpkinseed worthy of a hero shot. Right around 8" and hard fighting, way above his weight class; I thought I had a bragging fish on.



With my trolling the weed edge not producing, I tried Walt and Rich's method of letting the wind blow me down the basin as we had quite a lot of wind last night on the water. It would get stronger as the night wore on; I'd hoped it would slack off but nope. I'd get a good hit after a bit, this nice perch that slammed the Roadrunner and snapped me off as I was getting a grip on him; good thing he was in the boat when it happened.


I'd get 3 more like this over the course of the night with the last one nearly pulling my rod overboard he hit so hard.
The basin wasn't producing so I turned around and headed back toward the landing, moving back over to troll up the edge, into the wind. I'd get a few more small 'gills, nothing picture worthy.
By 7:30 I was about ready to call it a night. The sun had been gone behind the hill for a while, I was tired of fighting the changing wind and I still hadn't caught a crappie. Finally one rod went over hard and the first crappie broke the surface and in to my net. A nice 10"er. In the next 10 minutes, 2 more would follow, an 11" and a 9".







That would be it for our favored species tonight although I kept on with my trolling for a while more. I did have one more solid take and as I grabbed that rod and pulled my arms in to reel it in, I felt a head shake, then a solid movement in the other direction and my line snapped. I'm quite sure it wasn't a crappie.
Frustrated with the wind, I called it night at 8 and headed to the beach for real. Total for the trip would be maybe 10 small sunnies, 3 crappie and 4 decent perch.

I like the drift method in the wind myself. Works well. Nice catch. Those pumpkinseed fight hard. I love catching them. I caught a couple the other day myself, no crappie that day unfortunately for me.