A Changeable Day

When I launched about 8:45 this morning, the conditions were very agreeable. The temperature was in the 60s, with a light southerly breeze. Things stayed that way until about 10 o'clock.

I just had boated this 1-1 bass and tossed him back, when, without warning, the winds suddenly shifted to the north and increased considerably. There also was a temperature drop of 10 to 15 degrees, which sent me scurrying for the storage box where I earlier had put my hooded jacket.

In another hour, the wind speed had backed off again, but the temperature never got back to what it had been earlier. As a result, I stayed in my jacket the rest of the day.

By 2:30, when I decided to quit, I had managed to catch a couple more dink bass, along with two nice white perch, and a feisty pickerel. Once again, I caught everything on one of the mylar minnows my kayaker buddy, Charlie, put together for me last year. I saw several swirls on top early this morning, so threw a couple different wakebaits for a while, but neither one raised the first strike, so I put them away and stayed with the jerkbait.

I ran across Eddie Sapp on the water today, and he was catching white and yellow perch. I also talked to two fellas in a Nitro bass boat at the ramp this afternoon who said they only had managed one fish all day. While I was in the store, just before heading home, I talked to another man who said he had boated 30 to 40 white perch and crappie today.

Before shoving off this morning, I had a conversation with "Yankee," who was minding the store, and he showed me a photo of a bass he caught yesterday that would have gone between 4 and 5 lbs. Both he and Tom said the water was alive with stripers busting on top yesterday, but they didn't report catching any. However, Tom did report breaking off on a couple of nice fish, so he may have had hold of some.

The water temp when I launched this morning was 64 degrees, and it only had bumped up 2 more degrees by the time I recovered this afternoon. Without the wind change this morning, I have every reason to believe the water temp might have been awfully close to 70 degrees at quitting time.

I plan to keep my eye on the predicted weather for this coming Wednesday and may get in yet another day on the water if everything is OK. I would like to visit my little spot down south again if possible. Given the change in conditions this morning, which was accompanied by some very dark clouds overhead and off in the distance, I opted just to stay in West Neck, in case things really got nasty.