May 21, 2016
Fishing Time: 5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Rating: 10
Weather Conditions: Overcast skies with scattered showers
Bait: Drop Shot with Poor Boy’s Baits Green Pumpkin Erie Darter and Quick Drop 1/4 ounce weight
Rod: Megabass Orochi XX Drop Shot Rod
Reel: Shimano Sustain
Line: 7-pound Sunline Super Sniper FC
Total Bass Caught: 4
Final Weigh in Weight: 8.42 pounds
With both Lake Sammamish and Lake Washington closed to fishing, I have been unable to find enough time to drive out to other lakes and get a line in the water. After weeks of waiting, I was finally able to carve out enough time to go and trek down to the next closest bass lake: Lake Meridian. It took me a while to get there due to all of the traffic and it was dumping rain on my whole drive over, but I was determined to get out on the water so I persevered and decided to brave the elements. When I finally got to the lake the rain began to let up, which was a good omen for things to come. Since it was already 5:00 and the right hand side of the lake was all really shallow, I decided to start at the docks on the left hand side. There was little to no wind, so my plan was to fish soft plastics along the docks and edges of the lilies. On the second dock I came to, I cast over to the swim ladder and quickly reeled up the slack. As soon as my line went taut, I saw it take off in the opposite direction. I set the hook and instantly felt a heavy bass on the other end of the line. I adjusted my drag, fought with the bass for a while, and finally was able to get it in the boat. When I finally got it in the boat, I noticed that it was a largemouth bass! Not only was it a largemouth, but it was also a pretty big one. I put it on the scale and it came out to be a solid 3.24 pound largemouth. This is definitely my biggest largemouth of the season, so I was off to a great start. On the very next dock, I stuck with my strategy and cast over to the swim ladder. I felt my line get heavy and set the hook, but missed the hookset. On the next dock, I spotted an area in between the lily pads and the dock that looked promising, so I cast my drop shot over to it. I let my weight settle on the bottom and then slowly hopped it back to the boat. About halfway back to the boat, I felt something pick it up so I set the hook and was able to land a solid 1.5 pound smallmouth. The bass swallowed the worm, so I knew that they were actively feeding at this time. I cast over to the next dock and missed another bite. I stayed at that dock for a little longer and on my last cast was able to get the bass to bite again. This one was just a dink smallmouth and only weighed 0.5 pound. After that, things started to quiet down until I came to a dock with an overhanging tree near it. I cast over to the space in between the overhang and the dock and twitched my worm a few times. I knew that there had to be a bass there, so I left my worm there for over a minute, all the while twitching it to entice a bite. Finally, I felt something come up and hammer my worm. I set the hook and landed a nice smallmouth bass. The smallmouth was disfigured and appeared to just have gotten attacked by something, but none the less came out to be a solid 3.18 pounds. With four bass in less than two hours, I wanted to continue fishing, but unfortunately it started pouring rain and I decided to call it quits.
Observations: The water temperature ranged from 62-64 degrees, which was surprisingly warm considering the cold front we have been experiencing lately. The bass were all hanging tight to cover and it took precise casts and lots of patience to get them to bite today. The overcast skies and rain must have pushed them deeper because they were all hanging out on the deep ends of the dock and I caught my bass in 15-25 feet of water. Along with this, the bass seemed to prefer either the front of the docks or the parts of the docks where they could easily make runs to the nearby lily pads. The bass all seemed very hungry, as every bass I caught absolutely swallowed the worm. This has been my best fishing outing on Lake Meridian by far and I will definitely be going back there soon!