Fishing the calm before the storm,8-21

[6poundtest]

Hurricane Henri is poised to make landfall on the Connecticut shore tomorrow, probably noon or after at this point. Expected to be a Cat.1 at landfall, weakening fairly quickly to a strong tropical storm by the time it hits the Mass. border. Upwards of 6" of rain is expected along with the strong winds. I spent the morning getting ready and slipped out mid afternoon for a quick fishing trip since it will be a while until I'm able to go again.
I pushed out about 2:20 under mostly cloudy skies with a light southerly breeze to help me along. Air temp at 80, never noticed the water temp. I trolled 3 lines as usual and had the 1st bluegill in the boat in about a minute. Next fish just a moment later was the first crappie of the day, 8-9" or so. My past few trips have been mostly bluegill and I expected the same today. A pleasant surprise, most of my fish to start off were crappie with bluegill just here and there. Here is a sample of the crappie I got in to today.









The crappie today ran from around 8" up to perhaps 11"; I didn't bring my ruler. Bluegill were average to a bit on the smaller side for the most part, none that made me go "wow, big one!"

I did have one big perch today, wish I'd had the ruler for that one. I watched a video the other day and the guy was judging his perch by the number of stripes; this one is a 7 stripe. I have no idea of what that means but it an interesting way to judge sizes. This was at least 12", probably a bit longer.



He hit hard and fought well and gave me a good spiking when my hand slipped while getting him free from the net; I was happy to toss him back after getting skewered.

The wind changed around some at 3:45 or so and the bite died off some but I managed a few more before calling it a day about 4:45 and turning the bow for home. 1st half of the trip was mostly crappie and a few 'gills while the 2nd half was exactly opposite; odd how that worked.
Totals for the day would be pretty even for both bluegill and crappie, maybe 13-14 of each, and 2 yellow perch, the nice on above and an average one, perhaps 8". All were returned for another day.

[DockShootinJack]

They were biting pretty good .
Y'all be safe in the storms.

[Fishin' Fool MA]

Glad to see you got a chance to go out before the storm hits. It will be a while before you will get the next chance with cleanup after the storm. Tight lines.

[BuckeyeCrappie]

Great pictures, thanks for sharing

[SRHacksaw]

NIce numbers of both bluegill and crappies, and a really pretty perch. I never heard of counting stripes to judge length. I'll have to see if that works out here.

I went out yesterday, too, on a local pond, but mainly to test my new (to me) boat, a '58 Crestliner Super Seaman 14' aluminum skiff, and my old '86 Mariner 8hp motor (hadn't been run in 30 years). Motor had problems after working great for the first five minutes, but I decided to make lemonade from lemons and just fished where it died. Caught maybe a half dozen dink bass on crappie jigs, and two crappies 9-10". No bluegills. Threw a senko into the weeds and hooked a 14" largemouth that was huge for its length -- all mouth and gut. All fish released. and I was able to make it back to the ramp with choke at 3/4 out. With my light rowboat, reliability is never a question, but the new tin boat and motor will take some work. Anyway caught first fish from it, and managed to enjoy the pre-storm outing!

[franklin fisher]

Great job once again.