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Michael · Joined: 28 Jan 2012 Posts: 3823 Location: Bridgeport

Tuesday afternoon I hit Mondo Pond starting just after 1:30pm. Conditions were mostly cloudy, humid, and 5 to 10 mph southwest winds. Clouds decreased and winds increased as the day went on.

Played with a number of lures and hit may spots. I found the pattern fish were looking for. 3 certain lures they were showing interest in were yellow perch J-7, helsinki shad HJ-8, and custom painted threadfin shad F-7. It seemed like a minnow shaped lure ranging from 6 to 8 cm long and colors imitating perch, herring, alewife, shiner, and shad had them interested.

First fish on was a dinky pickerel with the HJ-8. At the same spot I hit a nice 9" perch that felt about 13 ounces and a 15.5" pickerel about 1 1/2 pounds. Didn't have the Berkley digital with me. Missed out on 2 pickerel with the HJ-8. The retrieve was 2 to 4 jerks before pausing for 2 seconds.

I had 2 chain pickerel follow a silver shad JSR-4 but nothing else showed interest in that lure.

Lost a largemouth on the yellow perch J-7 while doing a slow retrieve with the rod tip down.

Didn't get much more action with the HJ-8, so I stuck with the J-7 for a while, which resulted in losing 2 crappie and another largemouth and catching 2 crappie, 1 largemouth, and 3 pickerel. Biggest crappie was 8.5" and the bass was a cookie cutter 14" 1 1/2 pounder. Pickerel were no bigger than 13".

Once it was after 6pm I decided to try playing topwater with the threadfin shad F-7. I had a day in mid April 2012 at Lake Kenosia where I was hitting crappie and largemouths like crazy with a F-7 later in the evening while playing topwater with it. I never got any hits or swirls as I did a jerk and pause on the surface retrieve so I decided to do the slow retrieve with the rod tip down. That resulted in another 2 pickerel and 1 crappie. Biggest pickerel was 17" 2 pounds.

Hit the road around 7:30pm.

4 signs of warmer spring weather and warmer water temps I saw and heard were ospreys feeding, swallows feeding, peepers being loud, and turtles sun bathing. Also saw a mother goose already nesting with the male guarding.

17" 2 pound pickerel on F-7

14" 1 1/2 pound largemouth on J-7

Small turtle sun bathing

15.5" 1 1/2 pound pickerel on HJ-8