October 24, 2015
Fishing Time: 5:00 p.m. – 6:15 p.m.
Rating: 5
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; Strike King Green Gizzard Shad KVD 1.5 flatside
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: 2
Final Weigh in Weight: 1.00 pounds
After a great last outing, I was eager to get back onto the water and get onto some big bass. Unfortunately, I found myself pretty busy today and wasn’t able to get out until 5:00 p.m. Since I had such a short amount of time, I only fished the spots that I had had success with in the past. I started over by the lilies and worked my crankbait and swimbait along the edges, but wasn’t able to get any bites. I then motored over to the dock where I found the school of largemouth last time. I was extremely excited to give this dock another try, but it turned out that the people living at that house were throwing a party and the dock was too crowded for me to fish. With this setback, I decided just to fish the second point on the right side of the lake. It must have been a popular night for people to throw parties because many of those docks were also occupied. It took me a while, but I eventually found a stretch of unoccupied docks. I worked my crankbait along the sides of them and cast my drop shot to each of the pillars holding the docks up, but as with the lilies I was unable to get a bite. I even tried working the drop offs next to the docks, but even that failed to produce a bite. After about an hour, I finally came to a steep drop off that had its base located by a dock. I cast over to the edge of it and right away, my worm was picked up. I set the hook, but was unable to land the bass. I worked that spot for a while longer and managed to get the bass to bite again. I set the hook and this time it was on. I fought with it, but it ended up shaking the hook, which was disappointing. I kept casting my drop shot back to try and entice another bite, but after 10 minutes I gave up and headed up to my favorite v-shaped dock. I cast over to the right side of it and right away I felt my line get heavy. I set the hook and was able to get a bass on, but as with the other two, this one shook off. I tried the v-shaped dock for a few more minutes and then finished my day with the dock next to it. On my very first cast to this next dock, I was able to hook into a solid bass, but it too shook off. Frustrated, I switched out my hook and cast back to the same spot. I saw my rod beginning to load up, so I set the hook and this time was able to get the bass back to the boat. It ended up just being a dink 0.5 pound largemouth. At this point, it was extremely dark and I could barely see my line, so I decided to make one last cast over to the same spot. I twitched my worm for a while and was just about to reel it in, when I felt something hammer it. I set the hook and landed another dink 0.5 pound largemouth. I wanted to continue on, but the lighting caused me to call it quits.
Observations: The water temperature ranged from 60-61 degrees, so it was a little bit colder than the last time that I went out. I caught my bass in 15 feet of water today, which is about where I would expect them to be. The fact that both the bass I caught were largemouth is surprising considering how before last year I hadn’t even seen a largemouth in the lake. The bass seemed to have gone dormant today and I was unable to get onto anything of significant size. I believe that they are scattered around the lake in different depths, but the bass that I have caught have been caught in schools, so I know that when I do find the big ones, they should all be together.