April 23, 2016
Fishing Time: 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Rating: 7
Weather Conditions: Sunny with moderate winds
Bait: Drop Shot with Poor Boy’s Baits Green Pumpkin Drop Shot Darter and Quick Drop 1/4 ounce weight; Livinston Beauty Shad Howeller Dream Master Classic
Rod: Megabass Orochi XX Drop Shot Rod; Abu Garcia Veritas Rod
Reel: Shimano Sustain; Quantum Smoke
Line: 7-pound Sunline Super Sniper FC; 10-pound Yo-Zuri Hybrid
Total Bass Caught: 4
Final Weigh in Weight: 6.37 pounds
Lake Sammamish has been producing some quality bass lately, so when I found myself with a few hours to spare I decided to go out and test my luck. Since I had a lot of time to fish, my plan was to work the entire right side of the lake and see what I could get to bite. I began by fishing the docks on the first point on the right, using my drop shot to fish the pillars of the dock and my crankbait to fish the sides of them. Unfortunately, none of the docks on the first point produced any bass, so I continued my way down the right side of the lake and came to the second point. The first few docks on the second point didn’t produce anything either, but when I came to the fifth dock, I cast my drop shot over the the sunny side of the dock and felt something bite my worm. I set the hook and landed a small 0.5 pound bass. After this dock, the bottom got a little weedy, so I decided to skip a few docks and head down to the rock dock. As usual I fished the rock dock and the rocky drop offs adjacent to it, but this didn’t produce any bites. A few docks later I noticed a bass on my fish finder as I motored past one of the docks. I stopped the boat, cast my drop shot over to the dock and saw my line take off. I quickly picked up the slack line and set the hook. The bass put up a great fight and even jumped once before I got it into the boat. It was a decent bass and registered on the scale as a 1.45 pound smallmouth. At this point, the wind decided to pick up a little, so I headed over to one of the protected coves a little ways down the lake. When I got there, the water was extremely calm and I spotted a nice shady spot in between two floating docks. I made a perfect cast in between the two pillars and felt something absolutely hammer my worm. I set the hook and knew that I had a strong fish on the line. I fought with it for a while and was able to get it into the boat. The bass was 17 inches long and had a huge stomach on it, which helped it to end up being a 2.86 pound smallmouth. This was my third or fourth straight outing with a bass over two pounds, so I was extremely excited to be able to bring it into the boat. I continued fishing the rest of the docks and drop offs in the cove and did manage to get two more bites, but unfortunately I missed both of them and they got away. On my last outing, I found a nice new stretch of rocky docks on the far right hand side of the lake, so I decided to motor down and give those a try. On the very first dock I came to, I cast over to the pillar next to the swim ladder of the dock and was able to get another nice bass to bite. When I got this one in the boat, it came out to be a 1.56 pound smallmouth. After that I missed three more bites, which was disappointing. I wanted to keep on fishing, but a storm was coming in, so I was forced to call it a day.
Observations: The water temperature ranged from 57-60 degrees, which shows that the water is definitely warming up. The bass seem to have moved back to the shallows, more specifically towards docks. Once again, I caught my bass in 10-20 feet of water, which tells me that the bass are settling down into this depth range. Most of my bass bites were pretty aggressive and almost all of the bass I caught swallowed the worm, which shows that the bass are actively feeding again. They also all were pretty fat, which shows that the smallmouth population is healthy in Lake Sammamish.