An odd summer this...I have gone for days, sometimes a week or two without fishing and then I will make several short trips to different
locations for a few days in a row. After being "drydocked" for the better part of 12 days, my sweetie and I took the boat out to the local
resi for an afternoon's outing. The water was a good 8 deg cooler than it had been before and my usual trolling runs for white bass didn't
produce as I had hoped. My bomber rig gave up just one crappie about 11 inches long. The wind began to kick up so we sought shelter
in a couple of coves, broke out the ultralights and I let dearest run it up on the small gills and dink crappies. This gave me time to mess around with my new little sonar, a Garmin Stryker 4. I know you guys are way beyond that level of tech, but the Stryker 4 replaced a 30 year old Lowrance X-4 that had pixels that measured 1/8" X 1/8". (We figured fish size by the number of "dots". A one "dotter" was no big deal. but a 6 dotter...Whoo boy.) So that's a big jump for me. To date, I have only used the traditional mode. It will be fun to learn the other functions.
The next day, yesterday I got up at the crack of 7:00 and drove over to the local in search of smallies. I got there early enough that
the valley was still all in shade. The river was low and trout stream clear. I could see bottom in most places. There also were a surprising
number of floating leaves to contend with - a hint that autumn is fast approaching. I tied on a tiny torpedo and cast it into the shallows
on the far bank. I must have looked away because I missed seeing the hit. I only felt the rod load. In 18" of water the bass could only
go one way - up. Several jumps followed before it sought deeper water. Since I have not pictures, let's just say it was a nice fish, a real
nice fish. Several casts later, another blow up hit yielded another big 'un. In the next 90 minutes I had the best day on the river for size
in many years. Back home I celebrated with a breakfast of cheerios....
fish on,
rivereddy