We came for hybrids, and the nice fish Brian lost just as it would begin to run might have been one. I had 41 degrees coming in, Brian said it was 40 at his house, and it was 39 at Jimmy's house when he left for Dow's. Some clouds did roll in later, as you can see in the photo, but skies were bluebird to begin with, the wind strong, the water getting cooler. It dropped from 55 to 54.
I've never caught a hybrid on the troll in water cooler than 57. One would expect the lake to be at least that warm by mid-May, but according to Joe, also from the shop, it was 39 here in the morning yesterday, too.
We fished for close to four-and-a-half hours. Afterwards, I parked elsewhere and plugged the shoreline for 10 minutes or so. Brian had to work, and I could have gone back out in the boat, but with whitecaps bearing down, I was beat.
I could have gone afar to certain little coves I know about from last year, but under today's condition, I doubted they would produce.
The 15 1/2-inch brown trout hit a #7 Rapala Floater. Brian caught an 11 1/2-inch crappie on a pretty big plug at the last minute. Earlier, I had had another trout on for moment that hit over 25 feet of water. In the shallows something nipped the plug very subtly and then was on in the next moment, but only for a moment. It felt very small but didn't I detect the wriggle of a trout?