Fall Fishing Potholes Reservoir

I talk about Navionics a lot, but this past weekend it made a huge difference in my third place finish on Potholes Reservoir. Without it, I would not have cashed a check. To give you a background on Potholes, it is a very unique place with many, many underwater sand dunes. 

When the water is high, "the dunes" are full of cover in backwaters and are a flippin' and pitchin' dream come true. When we fished it last weekend, the water was very low. It was some 20 feet lower than spring water levels and the fish were out much deeper. The places we all love to fish early in the year are now high and dry. The good news is these sand dunes and islands extend into the main lake. 

With the Navionics+ cards I was able to see these offshore humps that were usually out in the middle of nowhere, but came up to 20, 10 or even 6ft deep. I spent my time fishing crankbaits around these islands in water that was 20 feet and would cast either up to the shallow water or along the deeper water as it dropped off.  On a few of them, I would get to the shallowest point, drop my Power Pole and cast to all of the sides with a drop-shot. It provided several key fish for me each day doing that.

The other thing that came into play was fishing the rocky areas for smallmouth. Again, the Navionics card helped me. Not just to find the rocks, because they were easily visible with the naked eye, but to find hazards. Many of these rocky outcroppings came right up to the surface and running wide open over them would have been very dangerous. The same is true of the shallow sand dunes and more than one person I know got stuck on them.

What I did was set all of the water less than 30 ft to be a certain color on my graph. Since the water was approximately 20 feet low, anything less than 10 feet would show as blue on my graph. It helped me easily find spots to fish, but also helped me stay clear of potential dangers.

Here is a screenshot of what I was fishing and how it looked when I adjusted the depth range to show "shallow areas" as being anything less than 30ft and adjusted the "Fishing Range" do be anything deeper than 30ft. It showed the good spots and that is what I targeted with the crankbait.

I ended up the first day with just over 14lbs and the second day I had just under 12lbs. The first day I fished a rocky bank first thing and caught eight keeper smallmouth in about 45 minutes using the crankbait and a drop-shot.

I also had the big bass of the day on the second day with a 3.65lb bass that came on the Megabass Deep-Six on the steep side of one of these islands.  It was slower for me the final day, I went to the rock islands and caught a quick limit but it was much smaller than the day before.

This was my first time using this crank and I loved it, it dives down to over 20 feet. This was a brand new bait for my practice day and as you can see, this bait got pretty chewed up from banging into rock, sand and from catching tons of fish on it. I caught multiple largemouth, smallmouth and some nice walleye with this bait over the three days I was there. The dropshot also produced well and helped me fill out my limit each day. I never caught any really good ones on it, but it definitely helped contribute to my total weight.

Cranking Gear
Rod: 7'5" MH Glass Composite Powell Max 3D cranking rod
Reel: Shimano Curado I (6.3:1)
Line: 12lb test Seaguar AbrazX
Bait: Megabass Deep-Six (sexy shad)

Dropshot Gear
Rod: 7' Phenix Ultra MBX drop-shot rod
Reel: Shimano Sustain 2500
Line:15lb Seaguar Smackdown Braid, 8lb Seaguar Tatsu leader
Bait: 4.5 inch Roboworm straight tail Aaron's Magic
Hook: Gamakatsu Aaron Martens TGW Drop Shot Hook (size 1)
Weight: 3/16oz Eco Pro Tungsten Full Contact Drop Shot Weight

Lake Washington TBF Recap

Last weekend I spent three days on Lake Washington, right in Seattle. It is a cool place because it is an urban setting complete with multi-million dollar yachts, floating houses, the Seahawks training facilities and plenty of smallmouth bass. According to locals, this time of year is the absolute worst time of the year to be fishing there, but the TBF tournament was scheduled so we were there.

Practice

I headed over there with fellow Spokane Bass Club member Anthony on Thursday night and we rolled in around midnight. We were up before 4:00 and on the water as the sun came up around 5:00. I had been there one time in 2007 so I kind of had a general idea of what it looked like and I had talked to a friend who gave me two "community holes" to try. Overall the day was pretty awful, I ended up catching a limit's worth for about 11lbs, but that was fishing hard from 5:00 in the morning until 5:00 that evening. We ran all over the place and even got a warning for speeding in a 8mph zone. I didn't realize those whole areas were no wake! At least the police were cool about it. Overall I felt decent about my chances going into the event. I had caught all of the fish in different areas and on three different baits so that gave me some hope that I could expand on those areas. A drop-shot, a wacky-rigged 4" Yamamoto Senko and Megabass Pop X were the key baits during practice.

My best fish from practice

The nice police officer had pity on the out of town bass angler.

One of the areas I found with my Navionics Plus card in my Lowrance proved to be very good as it produced several fish in the tournament. It was a slight underwater point that dropped into deep water. The shallow side had a nice grassline and the fish seemed to be right along the contour lines that were the flattest.

Standard Nav Charts

SonarCharts showed a deeper detail of underwater point

Day 1

The first day started off good as I caught a small keeper fairly right away on a drop-shot. After that it really slowed down and all of the spots I went to had a boat right on them. It was about 8:00, really windy and I was already out of ideas...not the best way to start the day. I switched it up and fished some new areas and was lucky to catch three more keepers, bringing me to just over 6lbs for the day which put me in 14th. I caught them all on a Roboworm straight tail on a dropshot. I fished weights ranging from 3/16 all the way up to 1/2 and would switch them based on the wind, depth I was fishing and also the cover. The big weight saved my day when I was fishing over 25 feet of water in those white caps in a rocking boat, proving I will drop-shot in any weather.

Day 2

After the first day and my low weight, I knew I had to make a big change. Since all of my spots were getting pounded I decided to make a long run into Lake Union. While it really isn't "long" in terms of distance, it is in time spent getting there. A run there takes around 15 or 20 minutes and then an idle time of around 30 mins. So 45 mins, on a day when we had to weigh-in at 1:00 was a risk, but it was well worth it. I had some spots there, but my non-boater knew it very well. With his help, I was able to catch around ten keepers and had 10.71lbs, moving me all the way up to 4th place. All of the fish came on the Roboworm again and it was just a great all around day and gave me some great points for the season.

The whole trip was awesome, complete with a high finish (and check), a police encounter and a messed up transmission on my truck! It was fun driving almost 300 miles home going 55mph the whole way, but we made it back.

Breaking the Ice

This time of year is exciting for bass anglers in the Northwest. The ice is starting to thaw on the lakes around here and we can finally start fishing for bass. I went out last week and literally had to break through some ice to fish. I didn't catch any bass but we did get some trout on jerkbaits.

I'll be going out tomorrow for an early pre-fish for our Spokane Bass Club tournament that will be in two weeks. That particular lake is still frozen in sections but I want to get as much time in as I can. Here is what I will be throwing this weekend (notice no soft plastics...at all). What is your favorite early season bait?

1. Megabass Vision 110+1
2. Rapala DT-6
3. Megabass Ito Vision 110 Jr. Jerkbait
4. Rapala Shad Rap
5. Megabass Vibration-X Jr. Silent

One day to go

I'm leaving for Lake Havasu tomorrow afternoon! All of my tackle orders have been rolling in and I am ready to get down there. I hand tied about thirty jigs for this event in some of my old favorite colors Havasu (hint: round rubber), I hope that lasts us the whole week.  I'm bringing just about everything I can fit in my boat and truck because I do not want to end up not having something when I'm down there.  

The pile keeps growing

I spooled up 18 rods and reels this week with just about every type and pound test Seaguar makes, so I should be covered. I have about 30 new bags of Roboworms ready and piles of dropshot weights ready to be sacrificed to the desert rocks. From what I know about Havasu, the jerkbait bite should be on and that's great because I have some new Megabass jerkbaits to try out. 

A few new toys

Included are the X-80 TD Trick Darter, Vision 110+1, Deep X 200 crankbait and original Vision 110. These and all of my other jerkbaits should cover me for just about every situation.

If you can tell from this, I am prediciting a jig, drop-shot and jerkbait dominated event. I hope I am right, those are all among my favorite ways to fish.

2013 Holiday Gift Guide: Part 3 - Megabass Ito Vision 110 FX Tour Premium

If you are looking for the perfect gift for a friend, or even yourself, the next few weeks will be filled with some ideas. All of these products have passed my test and have been used throughout the season. You will only read about things that have passed from my testing phase to a permanent place in my arsenal.

The Megabass Vision 110 jerkbait needs no introduction. It's one of the most used (and copied) jerkbaits on the market. It is my favorite jerkbait and I was excited to hear that they were coming out with a new version. The Oneten FX has a few features that make it even better in my opinion, the biggest being the lip design.

Bass Fishing at Night

My next tournament is this weekend and it will be a night tournament. It is actually an afternoon/evening and night event since we will be fishing from 4pm to midnight but it looks like it will be a fun one. I have fished three night events in my life and placed 1st, 2nd and 3rd in them (See: A Successful Night of Fishing). I don't know how, I don't consider myself to be a good night bass fisherman, but must be doing something right.

Last night I started getting all of my night fishing stuff together and have really narrowed down my selection for this event. Usually I take a bunch of rods, but think I will be able to get away with three rods after dark. What are your favorite night fishing baits?

Here's what I'll have rigged up:

Eco Pro Tungsten Heavyweight Flipping Jig: I'll have a 1/2oz in black with a black Zoom Super Chunk on the back. The black on black is a killer at night. 

Damiki Mega Miki worm. This is a big worm, at 11 inches long and it works great at night. Even though it's a long worm, it's a relatively small profile because of the thin tail section. I know from experience that even smaller fish will have no problem eating this bait. I have junebug and black with red flake ready to go rigged with a tungsten weight and big hook.

Megabass X Pod. My debate with topwaters is always: should I throw a popper or walking bait? With the X Pod you can change it in an instant. This bait has seven different positions, allowing it to switch from popper, to walker to diving popper and more. It's really cool and the lip changing has to be seen to be believed.