5/1 "Hump Day Fishing Trip...Truman Tailwater Wipers"

I'm always looking for the opportunity to hook up with white bass or hybrids , personally I don't know of anyone who doesn't enjoy tackling one of the best fighting fish around with a flyrod. I knew it was the right time of year and after checking the generation schedule for Harry S Truman dam and seeing that they had been generating heavily for several days I decided to head South for a little one day trip and try my luck.
The intelligent fisherman would have been up and on the road hours before the crack of dawn to put themselves on the water at daybreak for the best fishing. Not me , that might make things too easy , Joe and I didn't arrive below the dam until around 8:30 and might have been actually fishing by 9:00. Luckily the first few hours were mostly cloudy which would work to my advantage. There were a bunch of fishermen on the East side, crappie fishing I guessed, and a few less fishing the West side where I intended to try. We picked a spot downstream of the crowds to start off and threw a small baitfish pattern with a looped on sink-tip leader. A couple of small whites were caught but it was pretty slow going. After a slight move upstream I hooked into something that I immediately knew was bigger.

After battling the fish on the seven weight for a while I was able to land a respectable hybrid , at least in my book.

Between the strength of the fish and the strong current it was an exciting tug of war to say the least , mission accomplished...successful trip.

Shortly after catching that fish the sun made an appearance and it started to get hot.
Joe and I decided to find a shady spot and take a short lunch break. The last minute trip meant grocery store deli sandwich , bag of chips and some sliced apple was on the menu.


Nothing fancy but we both enjoyed it nonetheless.
I didn't have any more action after lunch and decided to change tactics after a while. I rigged up with a white baitfish pattern jig that I tie trailed by an olive version of the same jig. I dropped both of these below a large thingamabobber and began working the current seams close enough to reach from shore.

I immediately started catching small crappie pretty frequently and an occasional small drum or white.


Just as I was thinking of calling it a day the indicator disappeared and I could tell this was something a little better. After a good battle I landed another hybrid , not as big as the first one but still a nice fish for me.

I caught a few crappie that afternoon but no more whites or hybrids unfortunately. I decided to call it a day about 3:00 and started the two hour drive back to KC feeling pretty good about my decision to head down. While I only caught two decent hybrids they were worth every minute of that four hour roundtrip drive. If the conditions don't change before I'm off again next week I may have to give it another shot...maybe I can get my lazy ass out of bed a little earlier next time , but I wouldn't bet on it.