2026 White Bass Run

[ollie]

Not on Spring or Neosho River but have seen reports of white bass being caught below Oolagah dam and up the Illinois river right now. It's about to get busy on the Spring!

[BilletHead]

  It's about to break loose,

       Pink over white, chartreuse over white and orange and white clousers. All males except for one sow. Big males. Kept 19.  Released more than that. 

[Quillback]

Tasty looking fillets!

[BilletHead]

1 hour ago, Quillback said:

Tasty looking fillets!

They are Jeff and White bass get a bad reputation. This is for people that eat tasteless crappie and are too lazy to take the red meat off the whites. Yes I like crappie but you are actually tasting more coating and batter. Being a temperate bass they have big flakey meat. 

[Quillback]

Just now, BilletHead said:

They are Jeff and White bass get a bad reputation. This is for people that eat tasteless crappie and are too lazy to take the red meat off the whites. Yes I like crappie but you are actually tasting more coating and batter. Being a temperate bass they have big flakey meat. 

I eat them several time a year.  Cut the red meat out as you say and they are just as good to me as crappie or walleye.  My favorites for freshwater are gills and Grand Lake blue cats.

[fishinwrench]

Nice !   😊 

All I could find up here yesterday was one little runt, and a truckload of buffalo & gar 🙄 

[ollie]

I was down last Saturday just scouting and counted over 50 trucks, cars, and rigs in the parking lot. This weekend will be crazy down there at 10c I'm sure. I plan on going down on Sunday morning to hopefully beat the crowd! lol Not sure whether or not I will take the yak though. I'll hit the gravel bar for sure though. Good report Billethead

[Foghorn]

Awesome Pat and Marty.

[ollie]

Looks like some good fishing for a little while. I went down on Sunday and waded out on the gravel bar. It wasn't too crowded when I got there around 8:30. Got my waders on and walked on down. Good sign when you get there you see someone getting their rod bent. The water is way down from what I could tell. You literally could walk across to the other side in some places. Guys were out there everywhere in the water and at one point I thought the boaters were going to hit someone! Not really, but you get the idea. Kind of reminds of Taney below the dam when they aren't running water through. Any ways, I only ended up catching 4 total in about an hour and a half. They are there, but I think I just got there a little later to the show. Already saw a couple of guys with nice stringers, but they had caught most of those earlier it looked like. It was sporadic when the bite did happen. I caught the first one pretty quickly but then had to wait for the other three. Then those other three came later, but they came one, two, and three just like that. After that I didn't see anyone catching anything, so I decided to head back home. Good day really though. I got the skunk off my new rod and reel I bought so that is always a good thing. It was good to see people actually catching fish for a change!

[ollie]

Went for a quick evening of fishing last night after work. Not too bad, had to leave them still biting! Heck, I got down to the ramp and saw three guys out there wading and all were catching so I just decided to join them. Mind you I stayed my distance since I know how it is out there. We were basically out there up to our waist and throwing as closed to the bluff wall as we could. I wasn't catching at first, so I switched up baits and actually caught one on a gay blade. That lasted for a couple of fish and then nothing. Switched over to a standard rooster tail and started tearing them up. Only left a little earlier due to my line getting so kinked up from the rooster tail. Good evening of fishing though.