White Bass - Glaize

[mwfischer]

We made our annual trip to the Ft. Leonard wood rec area at the 6mm of the Glaize this past week. What usually is a bass mornings and catfish evenings trip turned into a white bass frenzy on Thursday and Friday mornings. We normally don't see whites this early in the year, and I don't normally expect to see this kind of surface action until the evenings later in the summer/fall. Around 7am Thursday in Patterson Hollow (9mm Glaize) a few surface pops turned into the entire mouth of the cove and down the left side exploding on the surface. Caught several dozen between 11-13" and then this really nice one. Great fight on ultralight tackle. Friday was the same, just out of the cove mouth and up the lake about a 1/2 mile on the bluff side. We left Friday afternoon and part of our group stayed until Sunday but couldn't find them surfacing again. Really fun end to the week. Caught fish on anything small and silver.. Whites were eating the little threadfin shad from this season... thinking the whites may be in a different type of schedule this year with the shad kill from the winter.

[WHARFRAT]

I've been hearing they've been poppin the shad. I heard it was better just before dark. Was it just mornings or did you get into them in the evenings too?

[fishinwrench]

There appears to be a shad fry hatch going on now that has triggered the surface activity. I saw some clouds of tiny fry yesterday that I assume are shad.

[Old plug]

They are rising in a very wide area just at the mouth of Gladstone hollow. They look small to me. I have seen people trolling for them about 6:30 int ht evening. It is kind of a different rise. sort of spread out over a wide area. I might hook up with a spoon and go check it out this evening. I believe they are all small.

WARFRAT------- I never fish for them in the mornings. To busy with our garden. I like evenings. You mentioned the day you was down at the place they were suppose to be but did not see any. The thing is all the flashy stuff that goes on on the surface often is happening down deeper and further out and you just do not see it . You can get them on spoons when that happens or deep trolling plugs. I jig them straight down. I especially like it where the there white bass or slashing and you see funny arches on the bottom. They are usually catfish cleaning up the left overs and they will slap hell out of that spoon jigged on the bottom in there face. Good way to catch some really big ones.

[nomolites]

They are rising in a very wide area just at the mouth of Gladstone hollow. They look small to me. I have seen people trolling for them about 6:30 int ht evening. It is kind of a different rise. sort of spread out over a wide area. I might hook up with a spoon and go check it out this evening. I believe they are all small.

WARFRAT------- I never fish for them in the mornings. To busy with our garden. I like evenings. You mentioned the day you was down at the place they were suppose to be but did not see any. The thing is all the flashy stuff that goes on on the surface often is happening down deeper and further out and you just do not see it . You can get them on spoons when that happens or deep trolling plugs. I jig them straight down. I especially like it where the there white bass or slashing and you see funny arches on the bottom. They are usually catfish cleaning up the left overs and they will slap hell out of that spoon jigged on the bottom in there face. Good way to catch some really big ones.

Two weeks ago the hybrids were surfacing over a wide area in the Gravois; most were in the 3-4# range but caught some nice ones deeper along with a few really nice whites. I am not a big spoon bouncer but those that are should do well on the flats just before dark; they(hybrids, whites, crappie, spots)had the shad scattered from top to bottom and seemed to prefer the smaller profile baits over the big stuff. Hope to be back out tomorrow, and that the bite is as good as it was then.