I'm glad I brought the net

We hit my favorite home water today, looking for gills above the average size and crappie of any size. We got our wish, starting with his first cast and my second. We've had a long run of hot, humid weather here in CT and the surface water temp. was *84-*85. We had strong steady bluegill action on a variety of lures, including a silver Phoebe. I stuck with various plastics while he switched on and off quite a bit. Picked up my first decent crappie of the year on this water after anchoring on the shallow side of a drop off and tossing a chartreuse BPS ripple tail grub and working it up the slope. He picked it up just before I pulled it out of the water off the back, perhaps 3 feet from the surface. A nice 12"er. Surprised the heck out of me. We took a few bluegill from that area but despite a lot of casting and working different lures in the same manner, I couldn't find another calico.

We had one eye on the weather after noon; forecast was for strong storms mid afternoon and we began to hear thunder way off and could see the clouds building. We agreed that we should hit our favorite piece of real estate, the floating dock I had such good luck with last year and then beat feet for home. My first cast with a grey and silver Crappie Stinger resulted in a 14" keeper. A cast or 2 later he got his first calico of the year, another nice 12" hard fighter that shook out the hook as I dipped the net under him! Just a few moments later, I hit my 3rd and last of the day, just under 12". The storm clouds were getting a bit more sinister and we agreed that it was time to get off the water. Turns out we could have stayed longer safely as the storms never formed in our area and went safely around us. Better safe than sorry, however.

While I didn't keep accurate track of the bluegill, I'd guess we put around 16-18 on ice, along with a couple of yellow perch, one very nice at a bit over 11". Very heavy bodied and thick along the back.

Big fish of the day: