[PECo]

My wife wanted to see how I spend my time during the day, but the titty bar where I usually hang out is closed on Sunday, so took her fishing, instead. She had never been aboard The Other Woman, Too, so I figured that a short run down to the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Plant Canal from Haddam Meadows State Park would be perfect. My daughter decided to come along and fish, too. When we arrived at Haddam Meadows, the parking lot was more full than I had seen so far this year:



I just wish that they'd paint lines on it so people would know where to park their boat trailers. We had to wait for a PWC to launch and an I/O fishing boat to put out before we could launch. When we got on the water at noon, the sun was shining and the air temperature was 64 degrees, but there was a brisk 10+ mile per hour wind blowing straight up the river from the south. Unfortunately for my wife, the wind blew up quite a chop, which made for a rough ride down to the mouth of the canal. My daughter and I thought it was fun, though. We motored 40 percent of the way up the canal, to where the channel appears at high tide on the west bank, across the canal from my secret crappie spot on the east bank. We anchored up, because the south wind was still blowing pretty strongly, even in the shelter of the canal. My wife was thrilled to be there:



Jessica threw a white Roadrunner jig, which is basically a 1/8 ounce curlytail grub jig with a tiny colorado spinner blade underneath it, while I threw an Emerald Pearl 2-1/2 inch Berkley Gulp! Minnow on a white 1/8 ounce round jighead. We casted at both banks for 45 minutes without a single bite, before I pulled the anchor and we began drifting up the canal with the wind. High tide was a 2:52 pm, so the incoming tide helped to push us along, too. After we passed the new laydown that's about halfway up the canal, we finally spotted another boat. A single fisherman was working his way down the canal in an older Ranger bass boat. He told us that he had caught just small fish and his lunker largemouth bass was only 10 inches long. Shortly after we passed him, I finally got a hit on my minnow jig off of a laydown on the west bank and boated our first fish at 1:20 pm:



It was a black crappie! Whoo Hoo! Jessica and my wife were thrilled for me :



Where there's one black crappie, there's usually more , so I anchored up off of the laydown. After I boated one more, Jessica snagged her Roadrunner on the laydown, so we switched setups and seats. That did the trick for her, because only a couple of casts later, she boated one, too:



Whoo Hoo! I think that I got one more black crappie out of the laydown before we resumed our drift up the canal. I got a couple of more before we anchored up in the cove that's directly in front of the power line towers. I call the south corner of the cove Crappie Corner. As expected, I caught my sixth black crappie there:



Finally, a decent 13 incher! We slowly worked our way up to the end of the canal, where I caught a small sunny:



Unfortunately, a dead beaver was floating in the water there:



I remembered to follow the Second Law of Fishics: Never, ever poke the bloated beaver! By this time, it was 3:23 pm and my daughter's enthusiasm for fishing was beginning to wane. I called "Just One More" and we began drifting back down the canal. As we passed Crappie Corner, I got a bite and boated another 13 incher, but this one was a real black crappie:



Unfortunately, my wife didn't forget that I had called "Just One More" , so I stowed our gear and we headed back to the ramp. We put out from the water at 4:00 pm, after another rough run up the river. Do you think that my wife heard my comments about how a new Ranger bass boat would have had a much smoother ride? It was hard to tell whether she was listening with her head down by her knees.
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Don't forget to wear sunscreen and don't litter!

[Pauleye]

Funny. I can relate. How many times did wifey comment, "I don't know what you get outta this!" I get that one about twice per trip with her. I limit our trips to about zero per year now. Much more enjoyable for both of us.

[PECo]

[DirtyDawg10]

Great report!

[bass tracker]

I get the thousand questions from my wife when I take her out on the boat,(which is verrrrrry rarely) then when I catch a fish it's "don't hurt it", "poor
thing", "why didn't you take a picture?"

Doing things together is great, but sometimes you need a mute button.

BT

[camojammin]

love your reports, still havent caught ya down at the meadows, (my backyard basically) hope to catch ya some time, maybe work out a fishing day