Sunday afternoon trip

Another nice New England summer day here and I hit the water expecting a busy trip. Lines in the water about 4:50 under hazy skies, air temp at 78, water temp about 81, and zero wind to mess me up.
I trolled a long way up along a favorite weed line in about 15' of water, landing some bluegills now and then and only 1 crappie in the first hour.



At the end of the first hour, I'd have the one crappie and 7 smaller than average gills. Much slower than I expected. I'd done quite a bit of cast and retrieve with a number of different baits but everything came trolling.
Thinking I was too shallow, I clipped on some 1/16 heads and moved out to some deeper water. I found some fish suspended just above the thermocline which was at 21'. Most of the marks I found were about 18-19' and had lockjaw. Couldn't interest them with trolled lures, cast and retrieve nor with vertical jigging so I don't know what they were.
Kept at it until the sun went behind the hill, then clipped on the lighter lures again and moved back to about the 18' contour and headed back toward the beach. I'd land 6 more fish including another crappie and that would do it for the night.



I pulled in the lines at 7:40 with a total of 14 landed; the 2 crappie above and a dozen smaller than average 'gills. All came on a Road Runner which had a variety of tail styles attached tonight. Not quite what I was expecting but had a good time anyway.