While most people were combat fishing for salmon in the rivers this month, Pika206 and I decided to head east of the mountains for some Potholes lake largemouth bass! First time in 2 years, we headed for Potholes for our epic canoeing/bassing, this time both of us brought our lovely wives along for the ride too. :) Original plan was to set sail to the Potholes dunes on Friday, 9/6. However, the weather forecast called for thunderstorms and heavy rains. I didn't mind fishing in the rain, but the idea of camping on the dunes with few trees or other high points while a thunderstorm rolled over us was a bit more risk than I was willing to take.
The wives would agree. Instead, we started on Saturday 9/7. Even so, the weather looked like it could turn to thunderstorms at any moment. Almost the entire day was overcast with huge dark clouds looming above. The air was warm and moist and the wind was picking up in the afternoon...perfect conditions for a developing thunderstorm. We prayed it wouldn't materialize. And for the rest of the trip...there were no lightning storms! Hallelujah! :D

We set up tents and prepared the dining area for our wives before setting out on our fishing adventure for the evening. Pika and I netted 8 LMB a piece that night, plus Pika got a huge bluegill on a popper. Action was more spread out compared to our last trip, but still good. They were hitting pretty much all the stuff we had throwing at them, but we had to wait longer between catches than last time. The storm from Thursday night must've washed a lot of junk in to the water as it was really murky and visibility couldn't have been more than about 4 feet. Spinnerbaits caught a large number of our fish. I had a couple on the fly rod, one on a popper and even one on a giant wooley bugger pattern! The sight of a LMB exploding on a topwater popper is such a great rush. I was pulling in my popper at around sunset thinking, "guess they're not biting this one." When the popper was about 5 feet from the boat, I lift the line out of the water and just as the fly was about to come off too...JAWS shows up! KaBOOM! a beast LMB nukes the popper and a 1 minute + battle ensues. Not only was this one pretty big, it was STRONG too. I had him on an 8wt, 9' fly rod but he was still able to dive his head down and pull out line. I had to put the rod under my arm and lean back to keep him from diving under the boat. He finally surfaced though, but not after one of the most tiring fights I've ever had with a fish. To my surprise, he ended up being only about 2-3lbs. Good to see even some of the smaller bass fighting so strong. Must be a healthy watershed. Even with all those lures, nothing seemed to be able to out-do the Ol' hook and soft plastic worm. Most of the 14 fish I caught and most of the 12-13 that Pika caught were caught with worms.

The next morning, the fog was so thick, we could barely see the dunes around us in the lake. Moisture from the previous week's thunderstorms saturated the air. The weather from Sunday afternoon and on was absolutely gorgeous though! Sunny and blue skies. Pika and I again picked up 5-6 more LMB a piece before we had to pack up camp, return the the launch site and drive back home. Stopped at Los Cabos in Ellensburg for dinner. The tacos and tostadas are great! Might considering moving our trip to be a little earlier next time...Apparently duck hunting season had already started and hunters were on their way out. :P

Great trip and great memories once again. Tight Lines!

---