DuPage Angler Finds Green Ooze Bass

 In DuPage County, IL

DuPage County / Aurora, IL

 In the heat of the battle

Unfortunately, the everyday fisherman doesn’t have the ability to choose the day’s in which they fish. For most of us when we get a little free time away from work or the family we throw the poles in the car and head out. Unfortunately, sometimes this leads to less than optimal fishing conditions. We found that to be the case today.

Wackybass and I found ourselves with an opportunity to head out on the water today. The conditions were unfavorable, ninety degrees as well as being the middle of the day. The good thing was we found a local honey hole with plenty of shaded areas and a very short walk to the water. Another plus for our two intrepid warriors that would have certainly passed out with much more distance.

We chose this particular honey hole for another reason. It wasn’t very deep. Any place else with much deeper waters would have been much more difficult to attack. Most of the bass most likely would have been in deep water and hard to locate. No, we felt as if we needed a shallower body of water, with decent cover for the bass to hide. This place was perfect. The shoreline was covered with a healthy coating of pond scum. We knew they would be there hiding.

This wasn’t your everyday loose coating of moss. This was thick, unforgiving, with a viscosity of engine oil that hadn’t been changed since Nixon’s resignation. Our first thoughts were, how the hell do we get through it? What presentation could you possibly make though this green monster? Well, it was easier than we thought.

After picking out a couple of lazy bass around the weeds, Toadfish decided just to roll a soft plastic over the top of the scum. He was using a 10 inch brown plastic worm. He was dragging it slowly, only pausing it for a couple of seconds at a time. After many presentations over much of the pond he finally struck gold. A big fat hog jumped through the green primordial soup and swallowed his worm. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning. The fish meandered through the muck for a few minutes adorning itself with this green ensemble until he looked like a green cousin from the Adams family. By the time Toadfish got him to shore this 3-4 pound bass weighed triple that. The fish was virtually invisible. It was like unwrapping a Christmas present from your Aunt Phyllis. Except this time it wasn’t fruitcake.

Fishing in perfect conditions is on the to-do list of all DuPage Anglers. But when you find the conditions not ideal, try to improvise. There are as many ways to catch fish as there are fishing stories in the local waterhole aside the lake. Be the fish.