Pollak Vineyards

This weekend, my parents came up to Charlottesville to visit and go winetasting. We made the fortunate decision to visit the relatively new, Pollak Vineyards. By far, they had the best wines I've ever tasted that have come out of Virginia. We got to taste 9 wines all of which were solid. Even their Rosé tasted decent, and I HATE all Rosé. After the amazing wine tasting, we asked if we could throw a line in their pond and were granted permission. In my opinion, some of the best bass fishing can be done on private ponds and their pond didn't disappoint.

I hooked my dad up with my favorite bass rig for a spinning rod: a size 2 Gamakatzu EWG with a green pumpkin or watermelon Gary Yamamoto worm. Pretty much immediately he caught a largemouth. Thirty minutes later he had caught six bass, most of which were fairly big. I chose to try a Gulley Worm, something I had just picked up from Albemarle Angler. I'm not going to lie, I thought there was little chance a worm made of chenille would be as successful as a plastic bait in catching bass but it did the trick! I pulled one bass in on it and then lost the worm to what felt like a HUGE bass that broke me off at my Ox leader. I think I'll have to start tying more of these gulley worms. I'll post directions on how to do so in the near future.

I highly recommend everyone take a trip to Pollak. It's going to be the best vineyard in Virginia once people catch wind of how great it is. For now the prices for wine are still low, lower than what you'd find at other wineries. Hopefully, they'll continue to let people fish in their pond too... just be sure to ask nicely.