Got out for a bit last night

Weather was perfect, wind was calm, wife had no concrete plans for dinner so off to the pond I went. Launched right at 5pm and off the water at dark at 6:40. There was another boat already fishing and I gave him a wide pass as I headed over to where I wanted to try my luck. I took a couple of shots of the best color along the shore. We just don't have much going on color wise here yet but here is a peek:






The magic box showed scattered fish all night, but no schools or groups to speak of, nothing I could really feel good about sliding over and perhaps try my luck jigging so I continued with my trolling method. 1st fish caught was nice perch of about 10" and in to the cooler he went. A nice crappie of about 11" soon followed, with a 2nd not too long after.






A couple of small bluegills were also caught and returned. I had quite a few hits that I simply missed, too. On past trips, it seemed they were holding on to the lures longer or actually hooking themselves. Not the case last night; the hits were there but by the time I could drop the oar and grab the rod they were gone. I'm guessing that the cooler water temp is beginning to slow them down a bit, not quite so active. Water temperature was right around 64. Still have the thermocline in the deeper water, right around 17'. Total for the night was 5 crappie, 4 of them right around 11" and one around 9", and 3 nice perch about 10". I lost one smallish calico while lifting him in to the boat and had a nice one shake the hook just before I could dip the net under him. Dang it, that one was in the 11-12 range, too.



I think the time for trolling is passing for the season and I'll probably do more casting and jigging of groups on my next trip. I don't have enough experience to know for sure how active they are at a given temperature so I'll just see what happens next time.