May 11, 2019
Fishing Time: 7:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Rating: 7
Weather Conditions: Sunny with Clear Skies
Bait: Gary Yamamoto 5″ Green Pumpkin/Watermelon Senko with 1/0 Gamakatsu Wacky Worm Hook; Drop Shot with Poor Boy’s Baits Green Pumpkin Erie Darter and Quick Drop 1/4 ounce weight
Rod: Megabass Orochi XX Whipsnake; G-Loomis GX2 Jig and Worm Rod
Reel: Shimano Sustain; Quantum Catalyst PT
Line: 8-pound Sunline Sniper FC Fluorocarbon; 8-pound Seaguar InvizX Fluorocarbon
Total Bass Caught: 3
Final Weigh in Weight: 5.32 pounds
After getting a solid start to the season last week, I decided to hit the lake bright and early to see if I could continue the positive momentum and get a few more bass in the boat. I was anxious to get a line in the water, so I started off by fishing the patch of lilies just right of the boat launch. My initial plan was to work the lilies with my wacky worm, but after seeing a few bass jump, I switched over to a topwater frog. I fished my frog along the edge of the lilies, but wasn’t able to get anything to bite, so I motored over to the Newcastle Beach flats to try and target some bedding bass. I wanted to cover water quickly, so I used a jerkbait to fish the docks and any isolated rock piles that I spotted from the boat. After working half of the Newcastle Beach stretch, it became apparent that there were no fish in the area, so I decided to try something different and fish the deeper docks on the Mercer Island side of the lake. I came up empty-handed on the first few docks that I tried over there, but eventually I ended up at a dock located on a grassy point that looked promising. I made a cast over to its swim ladder and after a few twitches of my wacky worm saw my line take off. I quickly reeled up the slack in my line, gave a big hookset, and managed to land the 1.25 smallmouth that had devoured my bait. After releasing the bass, I tried the exact same thing on the next dock and cast over to the swim ladder. I let my worm fall on slack line and before it could even hit the bottom I saw my line jump. I set the hook and was into another solid smallmouth. This one was a little bigger and came in at around 1.50 pounds. With two bass in less than 10 minutes, I was convinced that the bite was heating up, so I headed over to the V-Mac to see if I could get some bigger bass to bite. I worked the fallen lumber with my wacky worm and my drop shot, but there weren’t any signs of life. After going twenty minutes without a bite, I decided to move on and motor over to fish the docks on the point of Gene Coulon Park. Despite there being a rocky bottom, none of the docks produced any bass and I was just about ready to head in when I spotted a few isolated pilings in deeper water. I cast my drop shot to the base of them and before I could even close the bail felt something hammer my bait. I quickly set the hook and knew that I was into a quality bass. It took a while to pull the bass out of the depths, but when I finally got it into the boat it came out to be a 2.57 pound smallmouth. I was thrilled to get a bass over two pounds and wanted to continue on fishing, but the steady increase of ski boats entering the lake and people sitting on their docks made it difficult, so I decided to call it a day and head in.
Observations: The water temperature ranged from 62-64 degrees, which is about what I expected it to be given the recent heat wave that we have been having. I caught my bass in all sorts of different depths today, catching two in less than 5 feet of water and one in over 20 feet of water. I spotted a lot of empty nests today, which tells me that the bass are entering post-spawn mode. However, I’ve been unable to get the bass to chase a moving bait yet, which tells me that they are still holding tight to cover. I expect that the warm weather that we have been having will make the bass more active, making docks and rocky flats great spots to look for bass moving forward.