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Good bluegill bite tonight, 9-24
Despite the windy conditions, I loaded up the gear and hit the water after work. Wanted to go yesterday in much nicer conditions but overtime work killed that plan. 60 degrees at waters edge and water temps at 66 once I got out and going. Mostly cloudy skies with very little sun pushing through. I pushed off and had things ready to go at 4:35. I had one pole hanging over the side as I rigged up the others and before I could even cast it out I had the first fish of the night on, an average 'gill that got tossed back.
"Wind from the east, fish bite the least" had me worried tonight as the pesky wind was coming from the NE all night long. No way I was going to do any jigging tonight so I simply rowed along towing my 3 lines. They wanted something with white in it I found out in the first hour, only landing 7 fish and 6 of them on the lines with some white. I was on a bluegill keeping mission and anything over about 8" was coming home.
About 5:45 the wind eased off by about 75% and the bite began to get better. By that time I was way up the shore, and knowing that it was going to get dark early, I turned around to start heading back to the launch. Not much showed on the sonar but I got some good action out over the basin. About 6:15 I found the big schools I was looking for like this one:
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For the next 20 minutes the bluegill bite was just blistering hot. A couple of crappie, too but the bluegill just wore out my Southern Pro crappie stinger with a white tail. Second best lure was the 1/32 oz. Roadrunner in chartreuse with the SP triple tail grub in Tennessee shad color. Couldn't hardly buy a bite with it earlier in the trip but when the conditions changed, it became a favorite. Here's a few pics of my catch tonight:
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When I called it a night at 6:45, I'd landed 36 for a total. 16 of them came home with me, 4 crappie and the rest were 'gills. All cleaned up and destined for some panfish almondine later this week. 2 small bass, 1 perch, 1 skinny throwback crappie, 4 keeper crappie and the rest were 'gills.
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