Lizards Ahoy
Well, this weekend's chance to go out of state and fish ended up falling through. So, when I got back into town, I found a couple hours to sneak down to College Pond and work on trying to catch bass on soft plastics.
I got there around 6.30 at night, with a bit of sun still shining and a comfy 65 degrees. The pond is starting to grow in pretty good, with lots of lily pads. Nice for cover, but kind of annoying fishing through it at times.
I started out fishing a lizard for a bit, trying to fish the spot near the water before stepping onto the bank. I kept getting little ticks from the local bluegill population, but nothing else. After a bit, I switched to a dropshot setup, and stepped down to the water. Turns out that dropshot, even when rigged weedless, has a tendency to pick up a lot of weeds on the sinker, so that got old fast.
I eventually went back to the lizard, since bass are supposed to not like them. Tried fishing it further in the weeds. Got another tick, and the line starts moving off, so I set the hook. First soft plastics bass!
After the obligatory first-bass-on-this-bait picture, I gave another set of weeds a work-over. Same tap, same line running off. I might have gone a little overboard on the hookset that time, because the drag gave way on what turned out to be a pretty standard keeper-but-only-barely bass.
I ended up missing one more fish near the end, and left when the dark set in. Not bad for a quick evening out.