Whites Movement

[Bitethis]

Went to Steel bridge Monday night, not many people there to my surprise....not many fish there either, also to my surprise. Caught a few on a white swimming minnow, 1 on a white roostertail. No one else there had more than 5 or 6 fish, and they had been there longer that we had. I also noticed that I had caught 5 males, 1 female. When we were done, drove by Taylor bridge and there were 253,000 cars there. Asked a few people, they all said they did very well.

Question: Has the weather been warm enough that the whites have already run through Sac, past steel bridge, passing Taylor now. Or, do you guys think that some of the males have gone through and the sows are coming in still? Last year was wierd because it got so warm so quick...it was like I blinked and the spawn was over. This year, the weather went back and forth so much that I am not confident in whats going on. I see people talking about catching their limit in 45 mins, or catching 75+ fish (with appropriate headcount, of course) in an afternoon. I am not seeing that yet. Only once have I been out and hit my limit and it was in the mouth of the river, south of Greenfield (4/12).

Any insight would be appreciated!! Theories welcome too

[dennis boatman]

one walleye and one white on Tuesday below 215 bridge in 2 hours...I live nearby and fish it quite a bit and haven't hit it real good yet this year, though have heard reports like you stated...

[PHhunter]

I caught two limits last week by the steel bridge. Some very nice females and their eggs were a long ways along. The typical whitebass spawn lasts about 6 weeks total. So the majority of the fish spawn sometime in the middle of that segment. Usually goes the last two weeks of March and all of april.(Give or take a week) I have typically done the best the second week of turkey season. I believe this is when most of the fish are finishing up spawning and are really hungry. The river is full of whites right now and it will be really good for the next two weeks. Still somedays are still better than others. I like to move upstream as April goes on.

[vonreed]

This is the opposite of what ^ he just said, but. I've been up there 4 times and caught tons everytime. The first time was maybe 10 days ago. I went back to the same area and noticed the water had dropped so I moved downstream and did well, etc.... everytime. I think the water level keeps dropping and the whites keep dropping back down because of this. The last time I went, I went to the bluff below Taylor bridge and did very well, well over a limit in about 1 1/2 hrs. Maybe I've gotten lucky, but I think that makes the most sense.

[PHhunter]

Whites run up stream. You most likely are catching fish that are moving in. I have buddies that catch them just outside of Willard. They will continue to run upstream for a couple of weeks.

[WakenLake]

when i caught them i crossed the steel bridge and went down stream away from taylor.