Got some fishing time.

Yesterday afternoon I put the float tube on a strip mine lake . There was a brisk breeze and heavy clouds but rain not forecasted. 5 min. on the water and I enjoyed a 1/2 hr light rain. I was using a Crappie Pro jig head I had tied on and the Wally Marshall 5 1/2 ' back up rod had a hackled red butt jig with a #6 hook .I was tipping with wax worms. I had just a few red worms from another outing and used them up also. The bite was good right from the start. There were Red Ear feeding on the weed edges ,and bull gills were roaming the flats at 10-13' deep. Since the bite was good ,I only caught a few on the short rod. I favored the 8 1/2' BPS UL I have been using a lot over the years.
The brisk breeze I kicked off into played well around 5:00 PM when a nasty looking front bore down on me. I got off the water and loaded in plenty of time but drove home in a good rain.
The wife fried up some of the 10 gills I kept last night for supper. Sure were good.
I tried out a new manual inflate PFD from BPS It was comfortable and was happy not to have to use it. lol

You done good Mike

Congrats on your catch.


Regards

Good looking tomatoes!

Great looking fish. Amd yes those tomatoes sure look good. Are the stripmine lakes or are they private? Just cant catch anything like that near chitown. I uasually go to so.Il for my fix on gills.

Some of the strip mine lakes are public and are part of the Snake Den Hollow area. As long as one doesn't mind the hike and 10 fish limit. Most are pretty hard pressured but a float tube gets one out where I can fish them. I used to go to south Iowa but gas too high now.
As a side note the tomato plants are now just above the 9 foot gutters on the garage. They are fertilized with bluegill guts from former trips . Mmmmm- Gooooood lol

That is good livin right there. Redear, gills and garden maters! love the bounty. Nice report.

My tomato plants really preferred crappie cleaning, would grow to 8 footers and very bushy, but once back got crappy its off to farmers market for me now, those fish on your plate sure looked mighty good good catch. Isn't snake den hollow quite a ways south of Quad cities?

Snake Den Hollow is 50 miles South and a little east of the Quad Cities.

thanks for the info. Dave

Hey Fireman, If your looking for some bulls and want to save some gas try Whalon Lake. It's part of the Will co. forest preserve system. Man o' man they are getting big in there. good size quarry and well managed.

Nice looking fish and even better looking fillets