Finally back on the water

It's been a while since I was able to wet a line but the tumblers clicked in to place and I was able to sneak out and chase some fish today after work. Beautiful stretch of weather we're in here in CT, air temp & water temp both at 73 when I shoved off under a cloudless blue sky with very little wind. Had lines in the water at 4:44 and 1st gill in hand at 4:45, followed a few minutes later by a small bass so a quick start. Had a bunch of light missed strikes but pulled in the first crappie of the night, a weak fighting 9 incher.



Took a while for the next crappie to break the surface but he had lots of friends with him!





That school would give up 4 nice ones before they got wise to my offering, like these below. They would fall for a Percy colored Crappie Magnet.





Conditions allowed me to do some vertical jigging of the schools I passed over tonight and both bluegill and crappie would be my reward. Trolled my 3 lines as usual; the Tennessee shad color triple tail grub from Southern Pro on a Roadrunner head was clearly the hot lure trolling. Had a hard thermocline at 19' so I was trolling 1/32 ounce heads which usually run about 12' deep at my slow speed. Lots of big bluegill tonight, many at the 9" line and hard fighting.







After that first 9" crappie, the rest would be better than 11" on the ruler.







I called it a night at 7:20 after successfully landing a double strike of 'gills on 2 lines. Total for the trip would be 35, about 10 crappie, one each of perch and bass and the rest bluegills of better than average size.
It sure felt good to get back out there and even better was to lift some nice fish over the side.