...stuck under a bridge - a good thing!

This past weekend I had ambitions of heading out for some late season crappie fishing but the weather put a damper on that pretty quickly. Alternatively I set the boat into river near my home as I so often do. Sure enough, I didn't catch much of break as the predicted rains greeted me likely some 10-minutes after getting to my intended starting hole not far from the launch ramp. Not wanting to pack it in, I headed up river to the first of two bridges. I knew the water temperature was going to have dropped and initial readings confirmed that at 54 degrees. Until this week, we`ve been fortunate to have water temperatures hovering in the mid-to-low 60`s for the past few weeks. The largemouth bite had been on during this time, including some tremendous late-season top-water action. However, I suspected the cooler temps this week would put and end to that and packed along enough Anglers Choice finesse baits to supply an entire bass club, a pair of light line spinning rods and was open to targeting anything I could find, be that perch, bluegill, crappie, rock bass or whatever. My grandfather used to reply when people asked him ''what you fishin' for'' by saying ''just a pull''... and those where my thoughts for this session. The rain had that socked in appearance to it so I limped under the bridge and essentially fished there for the next 3 hours and 45 minutes. I caught a bunch of smallmouth, some tiny largemouth, a few small walleye, a handful of perch, bluegills, and rockbass and had an absolute blast often not moving the boat for as long as 45 minutes. I predominately drop-shotted the smaller sized Killshot made by Anglers Choice and even down-sized a step further on the same rig throwing the diminutive Crappie Fry also made by AC. What I found so interesting was the sheer number of fish I duped from such a small area that you would never think twice about giving it little more than a once-over at best. It's hard to convey just how long I spent in one tiny little spot; but repetitive casts proved effective and in time I saw more and more fish (presumably getting more comfortable with the boats presence) on the sonar. Makes me wonder how many times I`ve fished through and area and moved on - and just how many fish we leave behind on a regular basis! ;)