Morning trip, 10-16

The weather guesser's said that today would not be a windy as yesterday. They were wrong......... at least for the morning; there would be no vertical jigging today. But at least I had a nice setting once again. We had some pretty good rain on Thursday night, along with some wind. It took a lot of leaves down but not all.

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Hit the water about 9am, air temp at 47 and water temp at 57. A chilly start but I was dressed for it. Had a bit of a wind from the north to start and it would get a bit stronger as the morning wore on. My plan was to keep a few today, haven't kept a single fish all season. I clipped on a variety of lures to start, all were styles and colors that have worked on the last couple of trips, 1/32 oz. Only took a minute or 2 for the 1st rod to bend, a yellow perch of about 9" or so, (forgot my ruler on the beach like an idiot). He got a pass as I was really hoping to get in to the big 'gills and some of the nice crappie I've been scoring.
I had my hands full simply keeping the bow pointed in to the wind and luckily for me, this lake fishes OK that way. I went directly out to the deeper contours and soon found some schools, similar to this.

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I'd pass over a group, usually get one taker of some variety and then continue on up the deep basin. It worked pretty well.

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That red is just a reflection off the box holding my electronics.

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Most of my crappie today were about 11", don't think any would make the 12" mark. 'Gills were on the smaller side from I have been getting but I managed to put 4 decent ones on ice and released 4-5 that didn't quite make the grade. 3 additional perch would be landed and released, none bigger than my 1st one.
This stack would result in a triple bite but I managed to only land one fish, a keeper crappie.

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Ended up with 11 keeper crappie, only tossed back one shorty of perhaps 8", and the 4 bluegill. Got 'em all cleaned up and we'll be having Baked Parmesan Crappie for dinner tonight.

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Beautiful pictures. Those fish have awesome fall colors. Thanks for sharing.

Another outstanding trip. Glad to see you getting out now before the "hard water" sets in. Tight lines.