Ron (RHW) and I made a trip to our favorite lake yesterday, Lake Zumbro, in search of some crappies and bluegills. The lake has settled into definate summer time patterns. The fish are suspended over deep water, but finding what depth they are at and what they are willing to eat can be a challenge.
We used our usual choice of 9 ft. UL rods paired with Okuma reels. We had good action using mini-mites and small hair/feather jigs, tipped with a waxie or small piece of a crawler. Slow was the order of the day. Slowly move the boat and slowly presenting the bait produced numbers of nice fish.
When the sun was high, the fish were deeper and straight-lining the jigs down in 8-12 FOW produced the most fish. Later in the evening as the sun got lower, the fish moved up in the water column. We were able to use bobbers set at 3-4 ft. The fish seemed to also get more aggressive after the sun got lower in the sky.
We caught well over 100 bluegills and crappies, not to mention many smallmouth bass and even a northern. I managed to break my line lifting a very heavy crappie into the boat, looked to be all of 13 inches and quite thick. Guess we will need to start sliding a net under those big crappies…
The weather was great, the fish were very cooperative, and the company was great as usual. It was another enjoyable day on the water. Hope you get to go fishing soon!
Looks like you guys had alot of fun. Glad to see Ron out there too catching Lake Zumbros most two popular fish spieces.
Towards the end of August we three need to get out together and have some fun. 
Thanks, Bill
Nice report Mike
Straight lining gills on 9 ft.sticks must have been a hoot 
Mike,
Nice trip.
Jack.