NEW CROTON · NC-22
Thu Oct 22 · updated 5:31 PM
← the week's card
TUESDAY · Oct 27
61°/41° · wind N 7 · sunrise 7:20 · sunset 5:56 · moon 97% lit
The strong front of Friday is 6 days behind us — conditions rebuilding.
DAWN6:20–9:20 AM☆☆☆☆☆★★★★★
Yellow perch prime this month [MODERATE]
45°F · wind N 7 mph · rain 0% · Sunny
| WHERE | SS15TMBR12 — timber, 12 ft (0.1 mi row) |
| THROW | Mepps #3 along the edge; smoke Fluke Jr twitched and killed; pearl Rage Toad buzzed over the weed tops |
| TARGET | pickerel, yellow perch |
| ALSO | smallmouth on the point (4.5★) · white perch on the basin (4.0★) |
WHY: The weed edge is the season-long ambush line — pickerel hold on it through midday, yellow perch come up to it at dusk — so trace the edge at the measured depth with a moving bait. [MODERATE] Also: Dawn is this pattern's window [MODERATE]; wind held 7 h — bait stacked on the downwind shore [MODERATE].
MIDDAY10:00–4:00 PM☆☆☆☆☆★★★★★
Yellow perch prime this month [STRONG]
58°F · wind N 7 mph · rain 0% · Sunny
| WHERE | the flats beyond the weedline, 18-25 ft — drift across them, let the first fish set the contour, then anchor on it |
| THROW | start 20-25 ft with the worm-tipped grub on the drift; in October the ¼-oz Kastmaster tipped with worm, vertical |
| TARGET | yellow perch |
| ALSO | pickerel on the weedline (4.0★) · smallmouth on the point (4.0★) |
WHY: In September the schools tighten on the flats and drop with the thermocline — this is the month 18-25 ft becomes right — and October stacks them on the deep flats: start at 25 ft and let the first fish fix the depth. Fall is their season, the most movement and the most catches of the year. [STRONG] Also: Midday is this pattern's window [STRONG]; wind held 13 h — bait stacked on the downwind shore [MODERATE]; only above the 23 ft oxygen floor — the band below it is dead water [STRONG].
DUSK3:56–6:56 PM☆☆☆☆☆★★★★★
Yellow perch prime this month [MODERATE]
59°F · wind N 5 mph · rain 0% · Sunny
| WHERE | SS15TMBR12 — timber, 12 ft (0.1 mi row) |
| THROW | Mepps #3 along the edge; smoke Fluke Jr twitched and killed; pearl Rage Toad buzzed over the weed tops |
| TARGET | pickerel, yellow perch |
| ALSO | smallmouth on the point (4.5★) · white perch on the basin (4.5★) · after dark: white perch on the basin (3.5★) |
WHY: The weed edge is the season-long ambush line — pickerel hold on it through midday, yellow perch come up to it at dusk — so trace the edge at the measured depth with a moving bait. [MODERATE] Also: Dusk is this pattern's window [MODERATE]; wind held 16 h — bait stacked on the downwind shore [MODERATE].
AFTER DARK6:56–8:56 PM☆☆☆☆☆★★★★★
White perch prime this month [MODERATE]
51°F · wind N 3 mph · rain 0% · Mostly Clear
| WHERE | the open basin off the points and the head of the arm — 10-30 ft |
| THROW | the ¼-oz Kastmaster dropped through the marked school and fluttered; cast to surface commotion at the points at dawn and dusk |
| TARGET | white perch |
WHY: In October the white perch are balled up in open water and nomadic: one finder scan of the middle basin finds them, then drop the Kastmaster through the school. Dawn and dusk they push bait to the points and up the arm; after dark, until turnover, they are near the surface. [MODERATE] Also: Night is this pattern's window [MODERATE]; only above the 23 ft oxygen floor — the band below it is dead water [STRONG].
LAST TRIP SAID — the Sep 11 report, in the order to try them- Start at the 21–23 ft marks, not the weedline, for the first thirty minutes of the window. The water north-west of PT01PNT25 and north-west of HB02ROCK29 — the two places the fish were marked this trip — is a 0.1-mi row from the ramp. Anchor over 27–30 ft, drop the finesse rod's drop shot with the smoke Fluke Jr to 23 ft and hold it there; then the football jig (the card's throw) crawled up the point. If the head marks them and neither moves a fish in twenty minutes, switch the drop shot to a nightcrawler and leave it at 23 ft for twenty more. That is the bait test, finally done.
- Then the weedline, the pattern's way. North of the rock pile, where Brian fished it today, with the Mepps #3 on the metal rod behind the bite leader, moving, for the last hour before sunset. Fluke Jr weightless on the bass rod if the Mepps fouls in the milfoil. Not the lipless.
- The ¼-oz blue/chrome Kastmaster, counted down to 23 ft, whenever the head marks them suspended. It is the one lure that got a possible tap in two trips. Count it down through the marks and let it flutter on the fall; the hits come on the drop.
- Survey debt, if there is a mapping hour: one shoreline lane along the NC 20 bay by the road, parallel to the bank in 8–12 ft so the port swath reaches the downed trees in the shallows. Recorder on, 0.8–1.0 m/s, straight through. That is the second pass the wood needs before it can be named, and the spring crappie pattern gets its first coordinate. LANE17 and LANE18 (the rim target and the channel step) are still on the unit and still unrowed.
- Take the surface reading and write it down at the start and the end. 75.3 at 8:31 and 76.1 at 10:00 this trip — the turnover watch needs both numbers every time.
Thermocline 18.6 ft · Oxygen floor 23 ft (DEP mean; the 9/6 reading is stale)
Sunrise 7:20 · Sunset 5:56
Row cap 10 mph