The night bite for me the first part of May was always the 3:30 -- 'till dawn. That changes earlier and earlier Until mid July from my experiences. 
 
 Not talking about the Crappie bite.
 

I have never done that sort of time. No way I could get up then. No way I could stay up that late either! I may have quit around 3 a time or two. I prefer the day bite. Home and in bed by 10-11. I was referring to the accidental crappie catch. Those and the accidental eyes are always welcomed though.

  The Crappie seem to hit good for a couple hours after dark then slows drastically for me. If the moon rises after that they seem to turn back on.
 
  Was nice every first few weeks of May. The reports of the top water action were "they ain't hitting yet." Guys would fish till 12, 1 or up to 2:00 am and leave. I wouldn't go down until 2:00 and always had the place to myself. Still not enough nut jobs out there to fish those hours for a dang fish. Learned that time from all night Catfishing a few years after they started stocking Byrds. Can still remember that first morning of the onslaught of Alewife 

Took the boat up to the wilhelm stumps today. Caught a bunch of bass, nothing too big, but had pretty consistent action all day. I saw like one other boat all day. Super peaceful.

I finally hooked up the micro power pole I got last year, and mounted it to the bow. It worked out really well for fishing all that shallow wood and vegetation. I could maneuver or drift and pin the boat down by pushing a button. Now I’m gonna have to try to mount it on the kayak. It should be great for shallow rivers too.

Anybody ever fish pine creek in potter/tioga county? Gonna be camping up there the first week of June. Looks like primarily trout water but maybe bass too in warmer water.

Hit the yough yesterday and put a hurtin’ on some smallies. They were pretty active, feeding up in the shallows. Must have landed 20+ including a half dozen in 16-17-18 range, as well a 20, which was the biggest bass I’ve ever pulled out of the yough.

I didn’t weigh any of them. They were all pretty skinny and spawned out. I also noticed several schools of what I presumed to be bass fry hanging around the shoreline. Some of the smaller males might have still been hanging around guarding them, but at this point I imagine the spawn is pretty much over, at least around here.

Fun time of year to be hitting them.  The bigguns are aggressive.  Just need the rain to give larger windows that I am able to get out...
 
Water temp looks like the borderline of wet wade and freeze your balls off and too hot outside for any sort of waders...

Yea, it was probably one of the best days I’ve had on the yough tbh. Whenever we get some extended warm weather in May it always seems to get them pretty fired up.

It was pretty windy too, which was a pain in the @ss at times but it blew a lot of leaves and pollen onto the water which helped me find the slack water where they were sitting. The river was probably about a foot higher than it is in mid summer, so they were sitting in some spots that I wouldn’t normally target in say, July. It was nice to have those visual clues on the surface, to find the current patterns that are a little different when the water is up a bit.

Managed to get 6 hrs of fishing in today up in Dunkirk NY, only caught one drum lol. I marked 6 bait balls and we threw everything at them.

I also messed up and did not check to see if there was a tournament this weekend... There was. (50+ boats). To add insult to injury the power trim/tilt on my 115 e-tec is leaking hydraulic fluid, the replacement part is $200.

I'm off to lick my wounds with some rye whiskey, and play "that's life" by Sinatra. 

Camped on pine creek a couple days this week, got some good fishing in on the day we floated cedar run to slate run. Got a nice mix of species- some bass, trout, and then a couple I’m not sure what’s, but they were some kind rough fish like a giant creek chub or a fall fish. Second time I’ve had a trout hit a ned rig.

That creek must be stocked pretty well because trout were surfacing everywhere, especially on Tuesday, the last warm day before the weather changed. On Wednesday the bite seemed to shut down when the rain moved in.

Also had an extra day of vacation this week after we got back so I floated the yough yesterday from cedar creek to west Newton. I barely got a bite the first couple hours on the water, then the wind died down and the weather seemed to change, and they turned on a little bit after like 5:30 or so. I still didn’t do that well though, nothing big.

I think the post spawn + post cold front conditions put them in kind of a funny mood, but that seems to be typical of the smallmouth bite in may and June. If you get 3 or 4 days of warm, stable weather, they get fired up, but a change in the weather pattern throws them into a funk. The weather forecast right now looks like it gets pretty warm and stable from mid week through next weekend, so I’m gonna try to get out there during that time if I can. Maybe I’ll hit the Allegheny for the first time this year.

We used to rent a cabin a mile or two above Cedar Run, just past the “Rattlesnake Rock” hole. Beautiful area. Would be a great float area.