November 28, 2016
Fishing Time: 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Rating: 2
Weather Conditions: Sunny with clear skies
Bait: Strike King 3/8 ounce green pumpkin football jighead with Gary Yamamoto 5” Green Pumpkin Hula Grub; 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; G-Loomis GX2 Jig and Worm Rod
Reel: Shimano Sustain; Quantum Catalyst PT
Line: 7-pound Sunline Super Sniper FC; 8-pound Sunline Super Sniper FC
Total Bass Caught: 1
Final Weigh in Weight: 0.75 pounds
With school and sports in full swing, I’ve been struggling to find time to get out on the water, so when I found myself with a few open hours to get some winter bassing in I jumped at the opportunity. The cold front we’ve been having had a huge effect on the lake temperature and when I got onto the water I was surprised by how low the water temperature was. With this in mind, I decided to fish a lot deeper than I normally would have and headed to the first point on the right to fish the secondary drop offs. I alternated between my jig and drop shot, casting to the bottom of the drop offs and then slowly crawling them back up the slope. I worked my way all the way around the point, but didn’t have any success, so I motored over to the second point to give it a try. I continued my strategy of casting out and working my baits up the drop offs, but after not getting any interest I decided to mix it up and work my lures down the drop offs instead. I tried this for a while, but still wasn’t able to manage a bite. Still unsure of what the bass wanted, I decided to try something new. I began casting parallel to the drop offs and slow dragging my lures back to the boat. This helped me cover more water in a shorter amount of time. At one point, I managed to get a decent bite, but unfortunately missed it on the hookset. After finishing fishing the drop offs on the second point, I moved over to the V-dock and tried fishing some of the deepest docks on the lake. Unfortunately, all of the docks proved unfruitful. After fishing the docks, a cold wind began to kick up, so I quickly headed for a protected cove. Once I got there, I zig-zagged around the cove, watching my fish finder for any steep drop off. The cove started out pretty flat, but finally I came across a steep drop off that went from 20 feet all the way down to 40 feet. I positioned the boat at the top of the drop off, dropped the trolling motor in, and cast my drop shot down to the bottom of the slope. I twitched it a few times and then let it sit still for about a minute. I began slowly hopping the worm back to the boat and about halfway up the drop off I felt something grab my worm. I set the hook and the fight was on. I quickly brought it into the boat and although it was small, was ecstatic to see that it was a largemouth bass. It only registered at 0.75 pounds, but I was still happy to avoid being skunked. I worked the cove for a while longer, but eventually it started getting dark and I was forced to call it a day.
Observations: The water temperature ranged from 50-52 degrees, which is a lot colder than the last time that I fished Lake Sammamish. The bass have definitely begun to slow down and acted really sluggish today. I suspect they are right in the middle of their migration to deeper water and I caught my lone bass in 30 feet of water. The largemouth on Lake Sammamish tend to hang out in shallower water than the smallmouth, so I would guess that the smallmouth could be in water as deep as 40 feet right now. I always love getting out on the water for some winter fishing and was very pleased I was able to bring in a largemouth. Hopefully, I’ll have more time to go out and track down some of the bigger smallmouth.