A Little Fishing on Father’s Day Fishing

[islandbass]

First, Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there!

I got the green light to go fishing since it was “my” day today and my only regret was not waking up earlier. I had about 3 hours to fish but the place that would give me the best shot for catching fish, Lake Union, would knockoff one hour off my fishing time (30 minutes there, and 30 minutes back home). Arrghh!!! Oh well. I headed out to Lake Union anyway.

In the few outings that I have gone fishing this season, the drop shot has accounted for 100% of all fish caught. In addition, it had just dawned me that 3.5 weeks into the fishing season for me and I haven’t even targeted largemouth yet. Pardon the pun, but I have been “hooked” and fixated on catching smallmouth bass.

I get to the lake in good time and while tempted to try a different method, I grabbed my trusty drop shot rig, slapped on a 1/8 oz weight, nose-hooked an Aaron’s magic 4 ½” worm, and was rewarded with a hook up on the first cast. He wasn’t big but a catch is a catch. He was quickly released.



The third cast yielded another first on the drop shot. A sculpin of all things!!!!! I was just about to pull it out of the water to make another cast when it darted out from under the rip rap and latched on cleanly to the hook. I imagine the smallies could be eating these guys so I might have to look into getting some goby type baits. If you are curious, the bait in the picture is JoeS’ flat tail worm. Right on!



I got snagged on the fourth cast and after adding a new weight and checking the line and hook for wear, I make my fifth cast and another smallie found its way to the hook.



At this point, I opted to see if other methods were going to work after seeing mild swirls on the surface. I grabbed another rig with a gold colored Cotton Cordell rattle-trap bait but there were no takers. My lucky craft pointer was activated for duty but was just as unsuccessful.

I wasted too much time with the other two rigs and before I knew it, it was time to go. However, the notion that I still haven’t targeted let alone caught a largemouth to date reentered my mind on the way home. The feeling in my gut was telling me or should I say tempting me to go to the lake by my house. The little devil on my shoulder said, “It’s off the freeway exit anyway and on the way home. Ten minutes… Ten minutes is all you need.”

Heck, that was all the time I had left!! I succumb to the temptation and head to the lake and quickly run to the dock. I checked the line and hook and slapped another Roboworm. I toss it out to the pilings where I caught a nice one of Father’s Day last year. Nothing. I make another cast much closer to the dock and dead stick it. It was practically a vertical presentation at this point and a little largemouth came out from under the dock to investigate. I really didn’t want it to latch on, but my action to move the bait away was all it took to solicit a strike. Oh well. At least I caught my first largemouth of the season. :



All in all it was a good day, despite all of the fish being dinks. I’ll take dinks over being skunked but I think I’ll need to take a few lessons from people like Lightninrod and you other lunker catchers to land some bigger fish. ;D

-ib

Conditions: Cooling Trend, Overcast, 67 Deg. F