Another upper White Bass Trip

[SKMO]

Had the Great Pleasure of fishin this AM with one of the Rock's finest fisherman, Bill Anderson who for many years, and until last fall was the MDC Fisheries Biologist for the The Rock. He's still with MDC but has moved on up to supervise the warmwater hatcheries statewide. There are biologists, and there are fisherman, but when you put both in the same equation the fish really have something to worry about.

Anyway following is a brief report and some musings.

Again, staying in the K-City to Shell Knob zone. Fishing open gravel points with roll-offs to deeper water we caught 5 honest to goodness "don't-have-to-measure 'em" TR keepers and maybe 8 shorts from 0630 to 1145, when we had to get off the H2O to keep spousal comittments. Had a few come unbuttened next to the boat and some thumpin hits we missed so the bite was on. Also the shorts were not "dinks", just a little short, all OK fish.

Sounds "decent" but you need to know we did not get a SINGLE tap until maybe 0930 when we finally got a breath of wind and started to connect with the clearwater fish, so caught all these in short order once they went on the feed bag. So it went from as bad as it can get (nothing) to real good, real quick.

Bites were on sticks, swimmin' grubs, and finesse plastic, 10-25' water depth. The fish are there for sure, and they are heading toward their honeymoon love nests. All I can say if you are not geting bit on places like this, or other locations you have confidence in, hang in there. The fish are nearby and they are not agressive all day long, so expect some serious down time to chat with your partner between the sweet spots.

All in all a great morning on the water. It would have been a great day on the water with a dear friend withOUT the fish, but they finally woke up and cooperated and it was almost unbearable the fun we had.

Gotta keep reminding myself, it's not all about the fish, just the excuse we use.

[Phil Lilley]

Why isn't Bill smiling?

[SKMO]

Why isn't Bill smiling?

I few possibilities might be 1) It was only noon and the fish were biting and we had to leave as soon as we snapped the pic 2) The weight of the fish were causing him to strain 3) I caught the biggest smallie of the day 4) He really did not want to pose for a picture but I told him he had to or he was swimming back to the ramp. I would guess #1 as neither of us really was ready to hang it up.