August 7, 2015
Fishing Time: 7:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Rating: 2
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; Poor Boy’s Baits 3.5” Golby Tube with 1/4 ounce Poor Boy’s Baits Rattle Tube Hook
Rod: Megabass Orochi XX Drop Shot Rod; Abu Garcia Medium Veritas 2.0 Winch Crankbait Rod; G-loomis GL2 Worm and Jig Rod
Reel: Shimano Sustain; Shimano Curado I; Quantum Catalyst
Line: 7-pound Sunline Super Sniper FC; 12-pound Yo-Zuri Hybrid; 8-pound Sunline Super Sniper FC
Total Bass Caught: 2
Final Weigh in Weight: 1.00 pound
I had a very successful last outing on Lake Sammamish, but I was still craving a monster smallmouth, so I decided to get out onto the water bright and early to give it a try. I launched my boat around 7:00 a.m. and planned on heading straight to the north end to fish for some deep smallmouth, but the allure of the lilies around the state park proved to be too much and I started fishing around there. I worked all of the lilies, casting over to the edge of them and slowly retrieving my crankbait as I had done the other day, but the largemouth weren’t falling for it. After an hour of frustrating fishing, I decided to go back to my original game-plan and motor over to Weber Point. I knew that the smallmouth had gone to deeper water, so last night I looked at some maps of Lake Sammamish and tried to find steep rocky drop offs that the smallmouth would be hiding at. I had never really fished Weber Point before, but it seemed to perfectly fit the mold, so I was stoked to give it a go. When I got there, I was disappointed to find that the water was way down and that it was more of a gradual drop off than the steep one that I had expected. However, I still tried it out and worked my tube down the drop off. I got a few nibbles here and there, but couldn’t get anything to really commit. I was just about to go and try another spot, when I saw a floating dock a few feet away. I cast my drop shot over to it and immediately I felt my line get heavy. I set the hook and brought a nice smallmouth all the way up to the boat. Unfortunately, when I tried to get it into the boat, my line snapped and it got away. I estimate that it was a decent 1.5-2 pound fish, so I was devastated to see it swim away. After that, I continued down the right hand side of the lake and fished whatever drop offs that I saw on my fish-finder, but they all produced the same result — nothing. At this point I was starting to lose hope, so I decided to go back to what I know best and fish some deep docks. The deepest and rockiest docks that I could find were the docks on Eagle Point, so I headed over in that direction. On the third dock that we came to I cast my drop shot rig over to the end pillar of dock and gave my worm a few twitches. I felt something hit my bait, so I set the hook and was able to land a dink 0.5 smallmouth. Although this was a small fish, it did give me hope that there were still bass by docks and with that new sense of hope I continued down along Eagle Point. Unfortunately, hope doesn’t catch you bass and I ended up getting skunked for the rest of the stretch of docks. With one bass in the boat, I decided to go back to targeting monster deep-water smallmouth, so I moved over to fish the point by the rock dock. There was a massive drop off there and I worked it with my crankbait, but in the end I wasn’t able to get anything. With this disappointment I was ready to call it a day, but since the state park was on my way out I decided to fish it one more time before I left. I went back to the spot where I had caught my bass the other day and cast my crankbait over in between the lilies and some fallen logs. I began to slowly retrieve it, when I felt something slam my lure. I set the hook and was able to land a small 0.5 largemouth. After that, I decided to end on a positive note and call it a day.
Observations: The water temperature ranged from 72-74 degrees, which was a little colder than the last time that I fished it. I got my smallmouth bites in 20-30 feet of water and my largemouth bites in less than 10 feet of water. The largemouth didn’t seem to be as active today, but that may be due to the fact that I caught a lot of them the other day. I was almost certain that fishing deep drop offs would be productive for the smallmouth, but I just can’t seem to find them. It was encouraging to see two smallmouth hanging out around docks though. They may have gone even deeper than I thought and I will have to try something new the next time out. The water seems to be getting clearer and clearer every day and you can now see 15-20 down, which is crazy.