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BIG Bigmouth Waiting at Evergreen Reservoir
by Dave Graybill, July 09, 2005
I’d like to say it was my idea. I like to think I know where to go for a quality fishing experience any day of year, but it was my wife Eileen who suggested Evergreen Reservoir over the Fourth of July Holiday weekend. It had been a while since we had made a trip to this lake near Quincy, and she had fond memories of our last visit. She also figured it wouldn’t be as busy as many other waters of the region.
As much as I hate to admit it, she was right all the way around. There were only three other boat trailers in the parking lot when we arrived. There wasn’t hardly any wind to speak of, so it looked like it was going to be a great day to be on Evergreen. Boy, I had no idea!
We ran to the east end where there are some great islands, bays and reefs that we had found largemouth bass hanging on before, so that’s where we started. The reservoir is long and narrow, but in the Valley Tractor and Boats Smoker Craft, it was only about a ten minute run with the 115 Yamaha pushing us along.
I was into my first largemouth on a jerk bait in no time and I thought, Yahoo! This is going to be great. Well, about two hours of poking around here without another hit got me scratching my head. I left this great looking water and starting changing gear and they kind of water I was fishing.
I tried tube baits, which are a favorite of mine, and although I couldn’t tempt a strike, Eileen got a decent bass on a blue tube. I quickly tied on an identical bait and almost as quickly lost it on a rock. Digging through an old cotton bag that serves as my plastics storage bin, I found an old package of Zoom plastic worms. These were six-inch worms with a blueish tint, sort of like the one that Eileen had been using. Boy, packing that bag all these years finally paid off!
I just threaded the worm on a number 1, straight worm hook, put a split shot a couple feet above it and went to work. I just let the breeze drift us along the south shore and cast from about 15 feet of water to the steep, rock shore. The shore sometimes has basalt shale dropping straight into the water here, too.
In the next two hours we hooked and released ten largemouth weighing from two to five pounds. I don’t have a scale, but I sent some photos to Mike to accompany this little report, so see if you think I’m exaggerating.
OK, here is Dave's proof! (Editor)
From what I know of Evergreen, the action on largemouth should continue to be good clear through summer. The fish are far past spawn and are in beautiful shape. Fat and heavy.
Evergreen is also home to tiger muskey, so if you like casting jerk baits or crank baits, you may get a big, and I mean big surprise.
If you get an itch to do some largemouth bass fishing, here’s a lake that should be on your list. Evergreen Reservoir.
Eileen started us off with this great largemouth bass.