Reservoir White Bass and Wipers...Quick Weekend Fix

For the second weekend in a row I somehow ended up hanging around the house instead of sitting around a campfire on a river somewhere. There aren't many things that'll keep me from a fishing trip...but Mothers Day and celebrating it with my Grandma and Mom happens to be one of those things. That being said , even I have my limitations as to the length of time I can go without a flyrod in my hand and still maintain my (in)sanity. I'd heard rumors of the white bass and hybrids starting to be caught by a few fishermen on a local reservoir recently and with little more than a few hours to play with on Saturday morning decided it was worth the short 30 minute drive over to check it out.

Joe and I hopped in the truck around 8:00 and after a quick stop for a cup of coffee we were headed West. The morning was cloudy , with a slight drizzle in the air when we reached our destination and started the trek down to the water.

There were a half dozen or so other fishermen already on the dam but from what I could tell they were all stationary and more than likely crappie fishing. On my last outing for white bass the fly of choice had been a Thunder Creek Minnow and seeing as it was still affixed to the leader on my spey rod that was the fly I started off the day with again.


We started at one end of the dam and started working our way towards the other side , jumping around crappie fishermen as we came to them and generally just getting lots of strange looks from folks wondering what that guy was doing with the 12 foot spray-pole. In all fairness , if you could have seen my casting you would have been staring as well , I'm still learning this spey casting thing.
While the fishing wasn't red hot by any means we ended up catching half a dozen fish in the two hours we were there , with two of them being 4-5 pound wipers.




Still not big fish as far as wipers go , but for this lake they were definitely respectable fish and better yet they put one heck of a bend in the seven weight.


Once the sun started to break out from behind the clouds and warm things up the Saturday crowd began to arrive in earnest , what I like to call "fair weather fishermen". I figured the sun breaking through would put a halt to my bite anyway so Joe and I headed back to the truck and let the bucket brigade have it for the rest of the day.
Sunday morning I had even less time to work with but just couldn't help myself , Joe and I piled back in the truck and headed out again just before 7:00. A light fog greeted us as we made our way down to the lake , and seeing as it was Mother's Day , a few less fishermen as well.

We hit a couple of the areas that we had success the previous morning and managed to pick up a few more fish. No nice wipers today though unfortunately , four or five white bass and one small sauger were the extent of our catch.




Still a great way to spend a few early morning hours with my best fishing bud , and now that we know the fish are starting to move in I have a feeling we'll be back sooner than later. Until next time....

Springtime Bassin...Weekend Report

I had one of my long 4 day weekends this past week and with the nice weather managed to get out on 3 of those days to hit the water. I had some things going on at home which precluded me from taking off and making an extended trip but that didn't mean I still couldn't find a place close by to wet a line.
Friday I met up with a good friend and we drove an hour South to a private farm with several ponds and small lakes spread throughout.

He has permission to fish the area and I'd been wanting to go down and try my luck at some of the largemouth bass I'd heard about from his forays in the last couple of years.



The weather was beautiful, the beer was cold and we found plenty of bass to keep us entertained over the course of the day. Nothing says Summer like largemouth bass and farm ponds!






Saturday the only water I got close to was coming out the end of a hose , as in watering the newly planted flowers and vegetables that the wife had picked up at the nursery the previous evening. The water was calling me but I just had too many things to get done around the house it seemed. Oh well...there's always tomorrow.
Sunday the wife and I had plans to meet some friends at their farm over on the Missouri side , everyone else was taking off to do a little trail riding on some of the local equestrian trails which left Joe and I to venture off on our own and find somewhere to fish.


About 10 minutes from our friends house we found a small Missouri state fishing lake that was just what the doctor ordered. We didn't really fish very much but we had a good time just hiking around the lake and enjoying another beautiful Spring day. A couple of bluegill and a small bass were the only results of our fishing endeavors but that didn't stop either one of us from enjoying a beautiful afternoon.





Monday rolled around and I was lucky enough to get the call from another buddy who wanted to head South and try our luck at some smallie action for the day. As much as I would have liked to hang around the house and get some more chores done...a guy's gotta have some priorities!

I met Raz and Sean at the access around 8:30 and we pushed the boat off on another glorious Ozarks day.


This was our first float down the river this year and it was fun just to see how much Mother Nature had changed things in the off-season. Many of our favorite holes were no longer there to our great dissapointment, luckily for every spot that dissapeared there were several more new ones to take it's place. The problem was we had to figure out which of the new spots were holding fish.



We didn't light the world on fire but we had enough action to make it well worth the three hour drive one way. We didn't catch any big fish on this trip although we saw a few of them hanging around.




We threw streamers all day and refrained from dredging the deep holes and picking fish off of beds , I'd say almost all of our fish were smaller males that weren't in the spawning process and therefore still in the eating mood.

The weekend might not have been filled with exciting destinations and big fish, but when it was all said and done it turned out to be a pretty good weekend on the water.