White River Fish Padgent

[Bill Babler]

If your fishing Table Rock during daylight hours, and you shut your motor off before you get to Baxter going up the White or point 11 going up the James it had better be cause it quit on you.  Fish are on a feed in these areas and above that we have not seen in a few years.  All of our Black Bass species are just hammering anything that even resembles a shad.  The biggest trick is matching the size of your spoon to the size of the shad.  Seemed like every stop we made today the shad were different in size.  One bait that was constant was the 2.8 inch Kietech.  Color did not matter.

Launched on H hwy. out of Shell Knob to an amazing sunrise, and fished to Emerald Beach up the White.  Stopped to fish on 14 locations fish were on all of them. stopped to visit on 4 more.  All the guides were up the White today.  I don't think Buster ever put the Pooper down.  He was not throwing it shallow, when I saw him his boat was in 70'.

I frankly had a topwater bite going at 60 ft. and it just kept on and kept on, trouble was they were breaking on top but did not want any type of topwater I threw, so I just swimbaited them.  Throw it out and it would just go slack.   I left with fish schooling into the side of my boat.  The old adage of never leave fish to find fish did not apply today.  When you don't care if you catch one it always seems that way.

Lots and lots of fish suspended over deep swings and ridges chasing small schools of shad.  I have never seen so many folks run over acres of fish chasing to go "Who knows where."  Maybe they were like me and had caught so many they did not care.  NOT. 

Should have taken some pictures of Busters crew and Rick Lisek and his group as I think both boats totaled over 50 catch and release.

Kind of a funny deal, I saw a boat idling over a deep ridge and I knew not many folks know about it.  Had not passed him a mile and got a call from Bill Anderson our retired biologist saying I had just passed him.  He later told me he slammed them for over an hour on a 1/2 oz. WarEagle Spoon out there.

I had zero Pooper fish, mine came on the spoon and a Yamamoto cut tail along with the small swimbait.  To tell the truth I was looking for something with teeth, but did not get one of the tasty morsels to nip at me today.  It was an all bass bonanza.

Surface temps ranged between 69 and 72 degree.

Good Luck

[Champ188]

Nice report, Bill, and beautiful pics. Donna and I will be up Saturday to kill the deep bite for you guys.

[96 CHAMP]

Nice report for sure, wish I was down there.

[big c]

This^^^^^^^^

[tapout]

Good to know. Thanks.

 

[Nitro 750]

Great report and pics!!!!

[vernon]

Wish I could have read this about ten days ago!!

[m&m]

Bill, thanks for the report. 

Mike