September 4, 2015
Fishing Time: 6:00 p.m. – 8:15 p.m.
Rating: 3
Weather Conditions: Sunny with clear skies
Bait: Drop Shot with Poor Boy’s Baits Green Pumpkin Drop Shot Darter and Quick Drop 1/4 ounce weight; Keitech Crystal Shad 4″ Swing Impact Swimbait
Rod: Megabass Orochi XX Drop Shot Rod; Abu Garcia Veritas 2.0 Winch Crankbait Rod
Reel: Shimano Sustain; Shimano Curado I
Line: 7-pound Sunline Super Sniper FC; 12-pound Yo-Zuri Hybrid
Total Bass Caught: 1
Final Weigh in Weight: 1.25 pounds
After a spectacular last outing, I decided to get back out onto the water and try to get onto some more monster bass. Since the second point on the right has produced so many bass for me, I decided to start over there and fish the drop offs and docks. I worked that area for around half an hour, but wasn’t even able to get a bite, so I continued my way down the right hand side. I made it all the way down to the rock dock and still wasn’t able to manage a bite. At this point, I figured that the bass must have moved more shallow because of the lower water temperature, so I headed over to the deeper docks in bass cove. I worked my drop shot around the docks and cast my swimbait along the side of them, but unfortunately the results were the same and I wasn’t able to get a bass in the boat. It then got very dark and I was tempted to call it quits, but my inner fisherman took over and I refused to leave without a bass. I headed back to the drop offs on the right hand side and instead of working my drop shot rig up the drop off, I cast to the shallows and bounced my worm down the drop off. On my first cast I was able to get a bite, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a good hook-set on it. I cast back to the same spot and instantly felt my rod get heavy. I set the hook and was able to get into a decent sized bass. It fought extremely well, making multiple dives and even jumping a few times, but eventually I was able to get it into the boat. I put it on the scale and it came out to be 1.25 pounds, which is decent, but not the monster I was looking for. I really wanted to get a bass on my swimbait, so I switched it up and cast my swimbait back to the same spot. I began to slow roll it back to the boat and as soon as I began my retrieval I felt something hammer my swimbait. I set the hook, but ended up missing the bass. I wanted to continue on, but the boat launch closed early, so I was forced to head in.
Observations: The water temperature ranged from 67-68 degrees, which is proof that the weather is changing. As a result the bass are beginning to move back to the shallows and I caught my lone bass in less than 20 feet of water. The pattern is obviously changing and I will have to further investigate the new pattern of working drop offs from the top down, rather than working up the drop offs. It was encouraging to get a bass in the boat, but I definitely need to find out where all of them have gone.