A cooler full of bluegill
Well, not quite full. Hey, we're all fishermen and fisherwomen here and its OK to exaggerate a little, right?
http://i45.tinypic.com/2w5914w.jpg
Although the crappie weren't cooperating today, the bluegill were happy to nibble at our offerings and put a smile on our faces. We started our trip around the dock I've been having such a good time at: http://i46.tinypic.com/r1cup0.jpg
but today the fish were someplace else; I picked up just one crappie and no other fish there. The steady wind we had didn't help matters any. No indicators from the Hummingbird in that area either. We fished there for quite a long time there before deciding to try a different area. My partner picked up a nice 'gill right off the bat at the new area and that was the only fish landed there. Gave that a good long try, too. We were both pretty discouraged at that point but I talked him in to one more go around the dock area. I had switched the HB 570 DI over to the "max" setting rather than the "clear" mode so he could see how the FF picked up his jig action and I forgot to switch it over before we began our row back over to the dock. We had traveled about 1/4 of the way there, in around 28 FOW when I put on the brakes after I saw something that looked sort of like this: http://i50.tinypic.com/14mcqw7.jpg
Sorry for the terrible picture; its not easy to take a picture of the screen, I found out.
I told him to drop his lure down directly off the stern and turned the HB around so he could see it. As soon as it got down to within 2 feet of one of the black lines is was "fish on!" Smallish crappie. Dropped it again; nice bluegill. We anchored down right there and spent the next hour jigging up 'gill after 'gill, nice ones, too. Over and over again I'd hear him chuckle as he set the hook, saying "I can't believe this". That view on the HB was pretty neat to watch, like clockwork, seeing the jig going up and down and then the hookset, "fish on", in to the cooler. I didn't keep track of how many we caught; we moved when they stopped biting. Continued on back to the dock, I picked up one more nice crappie and we called it a day. Most of the bluegill were very nice, on the larger side of the usual average and we had a ball catching them. This is the deepest water I've found them in this year and I'm guessing that they are getting ready for cooler weather and stuff by going to the deeper waters. Today's surface water temp was around *63.
And to top it all off, I took a page from Blackhawk 19's book and contacted some folks whose fishing days are most likely over and asked them if they'd like some nice fresh fillets; I'll be delivering them tomorrow! Thanks for the idea, BH 19!
Ken
