Well, this has been a typical Virginia spring. We had a few days of nice weather that was starting to get the water warm enough for the bass and bluegill to start moving around some then it's dropped back down into the 30s and 40s and has everything back to about where it was in the beginning of March. When things were warming up I started seeing some small fish in the shallows. Some appeared to be minnow shaped so I bought a cheap minnow trap and set it out this morning. No minnows in it but I did pull up these four guys this evening when I went down to feed the trout:
They were between 1 and 1 1/2 inches. From what I've read, year old bluegill average somewhere between 3-8 inches so are these probably from a late spawn last year? After it had warmed up I saw three or four of this size floating along the shore the first couple of days it cooled down again. I also caught 10 7-10 inch bass in about an hour one day when it was still fairly nice out and missed or lost that many more. It'll be nice to be able to get a good sample of the bass and bluegill once the weather warms up again to see what I have to work with.
