Nearly skunked, but determination, persistence, and a willingness to change up ( a weakness of mine) were most helpful today.

Headed to the lake on the way to work with only about 25 minutes to fish.

Quickly prepped one spinning and one casting rig for drop shot and a popper respectively.

Started with the drop shot with a 2.5” watermelon sniper snub and worked it the way I usually do, by working the slack, but could only convince the 3” dinks to come out and pay my lure a visit. 12 minutes go by, with nothing.

So I put the spinning rig down and toss the popper around. Nine minutes pass and once again, nothing.

My mind goes into over analysis mode as I begin to pack up my stuff and by the time I finish putting most everything away, it arrives at the conclusion:

1) I need to go with something that was longer and red. It seems my first pack of Zoom trick worms fit the bill and I quickly nose hook it.
2) Use a more aggressive method of working the bait, in other words less working the slack and being subtle and more wiggling and jiggling the bait to death.

With barely a minute left, I didn’t have the time to make a cast, so I opened the bail long enough to allow what I eyed as enough line to drop the trick worm by the dock.

With my backpack on, my plastics bag on my left shoulder, casting rig in my left hand, and drop shot rig in my right hand, I dropped the rod’s tip down to the location I intended along the dock’s side. As soon as the weight hit bottom, I wiggled the living dickens out of the worm. For those who might not know, this is one way I do not prefer to use as a first choice when working a bait while drop shotting.

Like a bolt of lightning, a small bass streaked out from under the dock and annihilated the trick worm. She hit it so hard I didn’t have to set the hook.

Since it was a small bass, I didn’t do a Tiger Wood’s fist pump but instead allowed a sigh of relief out that I wasn’t going to work empty handed. Ever fish before going to work and not catch anything? It’s a crappy feeling. Yeah, she was small, but heck, at least I wasn’t going to work skunked.

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