9/25 and 9/28 as the season comes to a close
Tomorrow's the last day of the season for my favorite lake and I'm expecting to focus on bass since I'll be out there with a buddy but I had a great time with the UL my last two trips so I figured I'd share.
Water at the dock is pretty clear to 8-10 feet and you can see tons of 2-4lb bass swimming around with the occasional 5lb+ fish. This has unfortunately made bass fishing at the dock absolutely terrible as they refuse to eat any bass lure...but it's made UL fishing for bass pretty good if I drop deep enough that I can no longer see my bait or in a shadowy spot. My tiny 1.5" plastic is the only thing I can convince them to eat. Try as I might, a 2.5-3" finesse swimbait on the same .9gr jighead gets absolutely no love.
On 9/25 I started my day out at the dock and caught 3 bass around 2-2.5lbs on my UL before heading out on the lake and having a great session of bass fishing. Came back to the dock for a mixed bag of gills around 8" and a couple more bass about the same as the previous ones. Toward the end of the day as the moon came out, tons of crappie and gills rose to the surface to feed in the light. The crappie were really aggressive and I was able to catch just about every one I saw. Definitely a first for me and super fun. Blind casting really far into the light produced a mixed handful including a couple more bass, gills and crappie. A great day overall and sight fishing crappie in the moonlight was awesome.
On 9/28 there were 3 kayakers and a boat sitting on the tiny spot that I did well at on 9/25 and that I've been fishing most the season (guess the secret's finally out) so I figured I'd just see what the dock had in store and decided to commit to the UL all day. Ended up catching 6 bass all 2lb+ with just as many lost to sticks and cables on the bottom or under the dock including a 5lb+ heartbreaker before finally catching my first panfish. I'll land one of the big ones one day...just so tough with brush and cables all over since I can't put enough pressure on the fish to turn them without bending the hooks. Ended the day with a dozen bass (10 over 2lb), 3 nice size crappie, a heap of gills and a yellow bullhead. My only bullhead of the season and probably my first on the UL, was definitely surprised when he came up.
This was easily my best season of UL fishing ever, but boy oh boy did I go through a lot of gear. Jigheads specifically. Thought I wasted money by buying what felt like a lifetime supply of my favorite jigheads a couple seasons ago but I managed to use 100% of my black ones and about 80% of my white ones that I normally barely use. Just made a medium order to stock up a little but looking forward to trying a couple new brands out too. I'm glad I was forced to respool since it gave me the opportunity to try out Almight which has been working great for me.
Headed to Florida next month and hoping to get some canal/small water action on the UL and catch some fun new species and do a little more fishing related traveling here and there. Along with trout season, I'm looking forward to what UL action lies ahead of me before the lake reopens next May.
