Thread: Pre-holiday trip, 5-24

Despite the wind, I headed out with the goal of putting some fish in the cooler for a fish dinner this holiday weekend. I'd hoped 870 would ride along but he has home AC troubles that need solving.
I had lines in the water just before 5, with the air temp at 82 and water temps at 74, which is up about 6 degrees from my last trip thanks to the hot weather we had this week.
Due to the wind, tonight would be a trolling trip and I had the first fish in the boat in about 2 minutes, a small bass that would get returned. A keeper 10" perch would soon follow.
It seems as though the fish are setting up in their summer pattern as I found more schools out in the deeper water than on any of my previous trips. I'll just say that for the next nearly 3 hours, I'd row and tow my 3 lines and slowly but steadily I'd add perch, bluegills and crappie-Yes some crappie!- to the cooler. Here's some snaps of my take:











The wind would ease off some about 7 but not really lay down until just after 8. About 8:15, as I unhooked a throwback bass, I noticed a group of fish under the boat on the sonar and dropped down a baby shad type bait and pulled in another nice crappie, then another....and another....and yet another! In the space of about 2 minutes, 4 good crappie would make their way to the cooler and I decided to call it a night. No pics of those as the action was too quick to waste time.
Total take would be I think 34 fish in to the boat ( not sure if I hit the clicker on that last batch or not), with a total of 14 fish cleaned up for a meal or 2.

Nice catch. That will make for a good fish fry.