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Slower than expected, 6-19
After finishing my to-do list yesterday a bit earlier than expected, I gave some thought to heading out mid-day to chase down some of those big bluegill I landed the other day.
I gave 870 a call to see what his plans were and he wanted to get out as well but would have to wait until later in the afternoon. I agreed that later would work and we pushed out in to somewhat threatening skies about 3:45
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We were under the threat of pop up t-storms all afternoon and into the evening but the actual storms never developed over us. We started out slowly working our way along the weed line and drop off, all cast and retrieve today. While the action was somewhat slow, the 'gill bites were solid; you knew when they took it. We both enjoyed the solid fight of the nice ones we found today. Many of them were 8" and better, true keepers for around here. The crappie were few and far between at the start but we would eventually find them here and there and toss them in the cooler as well. The catch began to add up in there even though it seemed to be a somewhat slow day.
I got the first decent bass of the day and was big fish of the day until my partner landed this nice one of just over 2 lbs:
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That sure trumped mine so he had the honors of big fish and just to be sure he kept that title, he boated another one an hour later of the same size or just a bit bigger:
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Both came on the crappie jigs we were tossing, as did my "little" one. You just never know what you're going to hook in to while fishing, I guess.
My wife called to let me know there was a pretty good cell of weather headed toward us so we kept an eye out for it. When it started to rain and seemed like it would be settling in for good, we called it a day and headed in about 7:15 or so. We probably could have stayed longer as it seemed to let up some while we were packing up but neither of us had brought our rain gear; there will be more trips together, I'm sure.
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Back at the landing I snapped the required cooler shot and was surprised at how many keepers had ended up in there. We divided up our catch, with me taking the 'gills and he keeping the crappie for his family. I guessed he would end up with 13 to clean while I ended up with 10 big 'gills.
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Maybe he'll post and confirm how close I came with my estimate of the keeper crappie.
The crappie catch was sporadic last night; we would go for a good spell with no crappie, then catch 2-3 one right after the other, casting to where the other just got one, then another dry spell. Big crappie of the night were pushing 12", with a good number of 10-11" fish as well. We tossed back a good number of junior size 'gills and crappie, along with a couple of rock bass. 1 small yellow perch and 1 keeper yellow of near 12", the decent bass from each of us and a good size pickerel hooked by the King of the Boat as well accounts for came in to the boat.
As I'm typing this out, I guess it wasn't as slow as it seemed, all in all. In fact, I'd say it was a darn successful trip!
