What a great day on the water!

Cloudy. Very intermittent drizzle (if you totaled it up, it might have
drizzled for a total of 20 minutes or half hour, but it never went more
than about 5 minutes at one stretch). Air temp in the upper 30s and low
forties all day. Best of all, it was absolute, dead calm. Water temp at
Lillinonah, where I went crappie fishing today, was 44 to 46 in various
areas I fished.

Brought home 30 crappie in the 1 pound range, and just finished filleting
them. Could have brought home twice that many, but I knew I already had
reached the threshold of how much time I'm willing to spend cleaning fish.
All came on 2-1/2" Fin-S Fish -- either alewife or limetreuse -- on a 1/16
ounce head. Best period of activity I had, I caught about 20 suspended over
a fallen tree, about 8 to 10 feet down, over 35 feet of water. But most
came from 18 to 30 feet or thereabouts, much closer to bottom. Caught about
a dozen small largemouth "incidentally: while crappie fishing. (see, you
knew I'd get on topic sooner or later). Biggest of those accidental bass on
the crappie lure was about 2-1/2 pounds, but most were 10" to 12".

Then I pulled up on a point and tossed the drop shot into 20 feet of water,
to work a break down into 38 feet. Two casts, two bass. Both about 3-1/2 lb
-- one LM, one SM. Then I caught a bunch more crappie and a few more small
bass from a brush pile about 50 yards away as I fished my way to the best,
classic late season bass spot on the lake. I broke off the drop shot rig on
a deep, stone wall when I got there. Grabbed my other rod, with a 1/4 oz
jig and smoke Sassy Grub. Two or 3 casts later, I got a LM about 2-1/2.
Moved around the corner to the bluff bank on the main lake shoreline.
Banged a 5-1/2 and a 4 on consecutive casts with the smoke grub, and hooked
and lost another big fish on my next cast. Then it was over. I didn't have
another hit for the next fifteen minutes. But I decided I didn't need
another hit, anyway, so I put the electric on high and headed in to the
ramp.

Oh yeah... I forgot to put gas in the boat this morning, and ran out before
I'd gone 1/2 mile in the AM, so I did all this on electric power only.

On more thing, as nice as it was, it was still around 40 all day, and the
water was only a few degrees warmer. So I took the guys racing around on
the jetskis to be proof positive that riding one of them things damages a
lot of brain cells.



RichZ©
www.richz.com/fishing