White Bass

[Chief Grey Bear]

I had heard some reports from my dad that the White Bass were sarting to turn on at Grand Lake. So I decided to take my son there this weekend and boy am I glad I did.

We go every year down to Twin Bridges and go up the Neosho or Spring and do fairly well. We changed that up a little this year. Dad has a place at King's Point on the Elk river arm of the lake. He said that they are coming that way this year.

Now I know a few run that way evey year, but I am here to tell you, there has not been a run up the Elk like this in years.

Saturday we started about 8-9:00. We finaly gave out about 6:00 that evening. I kid you fella's not, we caught at least 200 fish. All in the 11 to 15 inch range. There were not a lot of boats. I would say in the neighborhood of 25 boats. All of the action as of this posting is right at the #10 hwy bridge.

Shad looking crankbaits worked best. I tried some white grubs but, no takers. I did see a boat jigging a spoon and doing very well, but he wasn't getting very big ones. You can troll or you can sit and cast. We did both.

Sunday was a great day too. It didn't really kick into gear until about noon though. Still it was a 100+ fish day.

Not wanting to spend hours cleaning all of these, we only kept 75 fish. Thats still a lot of cleaning.

My dad has been down there over a week now and I really don't have much of a crappie report. He has not had much luck finding them.

Good luck

Chief Greybear

[Rusty]

How deep of water were you fishing in? Do you, by any chance, know what the water temperature was? Great report by the way.

[Chief Grey Bear]

The water temp was in the 54* to 55* range. The fish were scattered as to what depth they were hanging in. Some would be as deep as 15ft to 20ft and others were right on top of them in the 5 to 10ft range. Some were in the channel and others were on the flats.

It really didn't matter where you were fishing, they were there. We never did venture up stream from the bridge on Saturday as all of the fish were from the bridge to about 1 mile down. We never did see a boat that was not hauling them in. Every time you got a chance to look at another boat their rods were bent over pulling one in! It was great!

Sunday we went up from the bridge and found quite a few there too.

I talked to my dad this evening and it has turned off. He couldn't hardly buy a bite. He heard a report that the same thing has happend on Spring River up from Twin Bridges. We figure it must be the fronts coming in as it is calling for rain all week.

[Bill Butts]

Chief~

That's a great report, congratulations.

Is your son hooked on White Bass fishing, now?

Do you know how far above the bridge you have to go to reach water with river current, and wadable gravel bars?

It would be helpful to know, since some of us wade the shallow areas on the Spring River and do very well.

If you plan to go back any time from now to mid-May, you could luck into some Hybrid Stripers that were planted in the lake 2 yr ago and should now be in the 15-16" range. You'll know when you hook one, they will immediately take off running. The lateral lines will be distinctly darker but broken, unlike a Striper that almost always has perfectly clean dark lines.

Thanks for any additional info you can provide.

Bill

[wily]

Bill, it's about 4 or 5 miles at least to where the river enters the lake, and there are some obstacles in the water so be careful.

if you want to fish the river i think you should take a canoe trip from cowskin canoe rentals. They are right at the Hwy 43 Bridge in MO, and only a couple miles from where it enters the lake...in fact you could probably just walk downstream from the mdc access, which is also right there at the bridge...just on the other side.

http://www.cowskincanoe.com/

we typically float from just below the falls in noel, down to their campground which is pretty good fishing, and you're away from the tatooed masses at noel. but the better white bass fishing would be further downstream.

[Rusty]

we typically float from just below the falls in noel, down to their campground which is pretty good fishing, and you're away from the tatooed masses.

Hey, I resemble that statement.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Hey Bill,

I would go with russ and float if you want to fish the riffles. Since the GRDA quit lowering the lake in the winter like they used to do years ago, the upper ends of Elk River, say from the old Shadow Rock and on up, has become so filled in with sediment that there is really not a defined channel anymore.

By not lowering the lake like they used to, the Elk just doesn't have enough current to cut a channel like it used to.

When I was a kid my dad and I used to head up there and catch a lot of crappie. I can remember this one spot(I could take you with in a 100 ft of it today) that just had one stick that stuck up about 1 ft out of the water. If you cast to the left of it you would catch nothing. If you cast to the right and let it drift back to the boat, you would catch a crappie every time. We would always pull 5 or 6 or so every time!

We used to go up the river and hit the brush piles with blood bait and catch small channle cat all day long. Nothing big, but great grilling size in the 9 to 11 inch range.

Anyway, before I get to far off track, you could put in and go up river, just be very careful. It will be very shallow.

And yes Dylan, my son is very hooked on White Bass. He is a lot like me in that if it has water, its fishable. Some of the funest (is that really a word? Heather?) fishing we do is hit some of the smaller creeks and just fish the holes. The action is great and you will be surprised at some of the fish you can hook out of there.

Oh yeah before I forget, yes we did catch some. We caught all three. I didn't think about it until you mentioned it. But now I think back and I did notice some that had very dark lines and I noticed some that had distinct broken lines. Next time I am down there I will pay more attention to that.

Good Luck

Chief Greybear

[Heather]

And yes Dylan, my son is very hooked on White Bass. He is a lot like me in that if it has water, its fishable. Some of the funest (is that really a word? Heather?) fishing we do is hit some of the smaller creeks and just fish the holes. The action is great and you will be surprised at some of the fish you can hook out of there.

Well technically you probably should say most fun, but I have been known to use the word funnest myself.

Anyway, the boyfriend and I were up at Stockton on Sunday and had some luck with white bass (I think that's what he said they were). It made my day! I hadn't caught anything since we'd gotten the boat, I thought we were doomed, but there they were! I'm glad you and your son can go fishing together and catch that many fish! Yay!

[Bill Butts]

Who do you know in the area that might keep up with the spring run of White Bass and other species in the Elk River?

Would the folks at Cow Skin be a good source for info?

I wonder where would be a logical take out point if we rented a canoe and floated down from their place to the lake?

White Bass need clean gravel to drop their eggs, so they have to be up in there somewhere during the spawn.

I have heard over the years that Hybrids go up in there as late as early June.

Any knowledge of that or other helpful info?

Thanks for any info you can provide.

Bill

[T HAUS]

It's been 14 yrs, but the mouth of Buffalo gave up a 15 or 16lb hybrid to a buddy of mine. He was catfishing at the time. I don't know if it's still there or not, but he was interning at the Neosho Fish Hatchery at the time. He had the fish mounted and it was hung in the hatchery.

I don't know of any public take out spots down river of Cowskin (43 hwy) bridge, but when the water was up, we've taken pontoon boats and wave runners up the river from the lake and to within 200 yds of the Cowskin bridge. My grandparents used to catfish at Shadow Rock many moons ago.

Bill or anyone from out of the area, if I were you, I'd get a Conservation map, which shows each area county by county along with a topo map (DeLorme). Take into consideration Cowskin bridge is fairly close to Oklahoma so roads below the bridge leading to the river are likely to start somewhere in Oklahoma.

Only other option is.

.

.

.

.

.

.

..

ROAD TRIP!!