Josh has started a new "over-the-road" trucking job and we no longer go fishing on our Wednesday outings. We did, however, meet up at our fishing buddy's graduation party for his son on Saturday and made last minute plans to fish on Sunday. My youngest son, Zach, joined us later in the morning.
We met at 6:30 am and headed to Gus' Family Restaurant for breakfast and a planning session for Sunday's outing. We knew that the smallies were slamming spinnerbaits just north of Harrisburg, Pa. but neither of us wanted to drive that far to fish. So, we settled on a location just south of the state capitol.
It was a cool morning and the air temperature at my home was only 58 degrees when I took off in my truck. The air temp fluctuated between 58 and 63 degrees all the way to Josh's home and finally fell back to 58 degrees as I pulled onto his road... Cool temperature for late June!
The air temp rose throughout the day to the low 80's and the Susquehanna River water temperature was 79.3 degrees according to Josh's depth finder. We had mostly sunny skies with passing clouds and the wind picked up towards the afternoon.
The wind has picked up over the past two days after the cold front passed through on Sunday evening.
We only caught five bass in five hours of fishing. Two bass came from spinnerbait bites (Green Shad and Chartreuse Bladed), two were caught on tubes (S&P with purple flake), and the last was caught on a Winco Laminated Wacky Worm (Watermelon).
This was the biggest smallmouth of the day caught on the Chartreuse Bladed Spinnerbait. She measured just over 17" and really slammed it! She fought hard in the river's current. When we got her to hand, we noticed that she had a live crayfish stuck down her gullet... Greedy. LOL!
I plan to fish tomorrow with Dell Jackson and Zach. We will be taking my boat out for the very first time since I had my knee replacement last July 2011. I took the time today to clean my boat of all the dust and dirt that it had accumulated in my garage over the past year. I also vacuumed the rug and checked the trolling motor, which worked fine.
The batteries have been on trickle charge all year. I have a really neat four bank charger that has custom measured cords for each battery. I have a 36V Minn Kota 101 that requires three batteries and a starter battery for the 115/80 Yamaha.
I'm not expecting too much for tomorrow because we are now in the summer doldrums. I plan to fish Lake Aldred. Jeff and Penny were on this lake over the weekend and only landed three bass... A slow summer bite, for sure.
It is this time of year that I usually find my most success in the early morning or towards dusk. Dell will be here around 6:00 am which will be about 40 min. after sunrise.
Twi N: 4:24am
Sunrise: 5:38am
Sunset: 8:38pm
Twi N: 9:52pm
FYI - I got the above information from the following website....
Sunrises and Sunsets
Take Care and Be Safe,
Dad
