Dean K. , John P., and I made a 4 hour trip for white bass last week, with the intent of being on the water during the week, avoiding the weekend rush. The target species was white bass. Others were invited, but work, family, illness, took most of the others out of the weekday trip.
Early morning on the river, 2016-02-12
The morning started out foggy, but warm, and even warmer since we were wearing waders.
4+ miles upriver a local man stopped us and told us to fish the hole in front of him, as he was catching a few and would like to see how a fly rod would work. By this time we were more than ready to take a break.
Walter R. and his S-I-L (Son In Law), Matt caught up with us at this hole and walked a little upstream. Walter’s rig was a 3wt with a lead core section tied before the fly, allowing it to get down quickly. I’ll get with Walter and see if he is OK with me posting his white bass rig here.
The colors of choice seemed to be either dark, or light, but not translucent, as the water had a visibility of only about 9-12 inches.
Most of the big females were down deep, well deep for that area anyway. A small change of inches sometimes made the difference between casting practice, and hooking up with a fish.
John and I went another mile or 2 up the river trying to find another hole what was holding fish. What we found was pockets that would hold one or two fish, and then another pocket that did the same. It reminded me of pocket fishing for trout in Germany. If you didn’t have a hook-up in a couple of casts right next to the shoreline, move on to the next hole.
From the folks we talked to the day before was a much better catching day. Even the guys throwing minnows complained about scattered fish. On the way back to the launch there were people tell us how the fish had scattered overnight, and now they were catching more but hitting a lot of open water. I watched one group throwing rattle-traps and pulling in fish in a routine manner.
The next white bass event is Harmon Creek.
See you there.
Sorry guys, no forum yet.
“Puck”
Gr8 report Puck! So tell us you or John caught a fish. You never said anything about you guys catching. Oh yeah a photo of a fish would be cool too. You don’t even say where you went.
I kept the name of the river out of the report on purpose.. 😉
Well now there you go…that does a lot to defer the the attitude that freshwater Fly Fishers are “elitist”. LOL 😉
I figured that if anybody actually read the report, as you did, and asked me, I would send them the information, as I did for you.
Total that asked so far = 1.