Gambled with the wind tonight

We've had a great stretch of wonderful fall weather here but nearly every day we've had a wind that has kept me off the water. The last few days it has seemed to calm down about 5:15-5:30 or so. Finished up a bit early at work, flipped a coin, loaded the gear and headed out to try my luck. Air temp 52 at waters edge and water temp between 55 & 56. Wind not bad at the start of the trip but 45 minutes later it was actually getting stronger, not lighter. Figures...
The foliage is great, here are a few pics of my setting today.








Lines in the water at 3:59 and first bluegill in the boat just 3 minutes later, the first of about 6-7 on this trip.



Nice 'gills again on this trip, most near 9".


I clipped on one of Micanopy's hand ties and the first crappie of the night got measured.


I kept that one tied on for a while but that was the only fish it would fool. I tried a couple of his other ties without any success. But the Tennessee shad color triple tail grub from Southern Pro, on both 1/16 and 1/32 oz. heads would be the clear winners tonight for both crappie and bluegill, although I did get one crappie on the Crappie Magnet, Percy color once again. Here are some of the target species I'd catch and release tonight.



The wind caused me all kinds of trouble tonight but I kept my patience hat on and just dealt with it. It was really blowing by 5:30, near white cap conditions, but I stayed with it until 6:15 before winding in the lines for good. It was getting darn chilly and I was glad I had on an extra sweatshirt and my PFD; body was warm but the hands were cold.
A total of 16 fish would be landed and released; more crappie than 'gills for a change. I think it was 10 crappie and 6 bluegills. Or 9 & 7....whatever. It was a beautiful night to be out other than the wind; the sky was just amazing with lots of big clouds rolling through, moon coming up, nice sunset, the whole works. Was hoping to see the comet but had a solid line of clouds to the west that blocked it out.









And one last picture of tonight's sunset.



I'm glad I went.............