Another great day of fishing

Ben & I took a long hike to one of his favorite spots. I threw a jig out and caught a white bass on the first cast. Grabbed the fly rod and caught a white bass right away. We were having to roll cast and it was difficult getting it out to the spot they were holding so I walked around to the other side of the curve and was able to get down onto a submerged sand bar. I started casting but nothing. Grabbed the spinning rod and first cast I caught another white bass. So I changed flies twice and still nothing. Grabbed the spinning rod and on the second cast I caught another white bass. So now I knew it wasn't the fly, it had to be the presentation and location. I walked out about 10 feet further, cast out and let the fly sink for another second longer, one short strip to remove the slack from the line and BAM a white bass took it. I had a gray & white clouser on. I caught 10 white bass and then lost it when number 11 broke me off. Unfortunately it was the only gray & white one I had tied so I had to switch to chartreuse & white. I caught one more on the fly rod then the bite shutoff.

I ended the morning with 17 white bass. It was an absolute blast fighting those 14 inch plus white bass on my 4 weight this weekend. It made the spinning rod feel really boring, LOL.

We checked on Birch then ended the day catching a whole bunch of small crappie and bluegill. It was great to be out there fishing with you again Ben.

Nice catch, dude!

Great report! Sounds like you really killed it this weekend.

Birch Creek was big disappointment.. stained water but plenty of it. Walked my legs into cramps.. never had cramps like these before.. getting old ain't for sissies. We did catch fish though (but not in Birch) so it was worth the effort. If I do Birch creek again it will need to be from the yak and for crappie. Didn't look like whitebass water to me.. Seems like there is more LMB and sunfish in the creeks than ever before.




catch a couple of racing stripe crappie every trip out this time of year..

caught tons of undersize crappie Sunday..

but just a few of these..

Great report!

Any of you looking for crappie from the yak might want to drop in the Yegua @ the highway 36 bridge. The COE released water from the spillway since October and the crappie were not among the fish that died back in September so they should still be hanging around somewhere.. and it is a easy paddle compared to the upper lake..

Thanks Jared, it was incredible. I really learned a lot about tying good clousers this weekend as well. As the water has gotten lower and clearer the small, more realistic gray and white size 8 clouser seems to be the ticket. It's really rewarding to tie your own fly and the fish absolutely destroy it!!!!!

Those are some nice pics, Ben. Thanks for sharing.

I thought the bite was good today. I threw 5 back in before I started keeping them. Brought home 23. I must have caught 40 to 50 under size crappie. I know one thing, I had a fish pulling on the other end most of the day.
I had fun.
For some reason, I can't get my uploaded photo to show up, I'll try again tomorrow. A small box appears after it uploads, that's it.

Had a good catch of crappie this weekend. Disappointed we didn't catch many whites though. Caught a couple nice black bass though. From what we saw, not many people had much luck catching whites either. Hoping they will pick back up again shortly, sure is fun catching nice yegua white bass.

I really had a good time yesterday meeting people twice, yes twice. I was fishing down in the horseshoe area and people would walk by and chat for a few minutes. About ten minutes later, here they come again. I would burst out with a laugh and say, good to see you again. LOL They could not find the parking lot to save their life. I would then draw out a diagram in the sand on how the creek makes a horseshoe bend and explain to them what they were doing that was causing them to get on the wrong side and go in circles. Oh my, I haven�t laughed this hard in awhile. The expression on their faces when they would run into me the second time was priceless. They were so confused, it was written all over their face when they would approach me that second time. After I told these three guys how to get to the parking lot and they were walking away, I shouted out; see you guys in a few minutes with an out burst of laughter that followed. It was hilarious. The first encounter was an older lady by herself, I didn�t laugh at her, I simply explained to her on how get back. But as this continued to be an issue with many others, I couldn�t help myself, it had become a very funny thing to me. That was the highlight of my trip right there.

Oh you are going to like this one. The never of some people, I�m telling you. Three guys walk up and they see me catching a fish on almost every cast and they wanted to see what I was using. No problem, I show them. Ten minutes go by and one came up to me and asked me if he could fish in the hole where I was catching these fish. I told him no. I mean, this was a very small bank area that I was fishing from and I wasn�t about to give it up after I found this hole. I still can�t believe he even asked me this question. After I showed him and his buddies the jig I was throwing, they still asked me if I was using live bait? Really, no bait bucket, no container with live crawfish, I guess they thought I had live bait in my pocket or something, I don�t know.

The females I caught yesterday are beginning to show some good signs of egg sack maturity. Still not quite ready, but getting close. I did hear a noise downstream in the water that sounded like the white bass spawning action. Only heard it once, but with these warmer temps, it will probably increase over the next few days before this next cold front arrives and cools the water back down, which will again shut the bite down. But this is a good thing, because as soon as these females spawn out, they will leave the creek and return to the lake, as their mission has been completed. So, the longer this process of spawning gets cut back short due to colder water temps, the longer these fish will stay up in the creek for all of us to fish for them. But there is still eight more weeks of this white bass spawn to look forward to and it will only get better by the week.

Yesterday when I first started out, I was catching a fish here and a fish there. I started changing jig size, shape and color till I found the right one they liked the best. After that, it was on. I can�t tell you how many back to back cast delivered a catch. But yesterday was one of my better days this year to say the least. Today should be an awesome day as well, but I don�t think I�m going to be able to swing a trip. But I will be out there Tuesday and Wednesday.

This is the best I can do on downloading a pic, so here it is.
[img]https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hph...amp;oe=57283160[/img]

That's hilarious. Now we know how you catch so many fish, Doug. You are somehow able to clone yourself and fish multiple spots along the creek.

They probably felt like they were in an episode of the Twilight Zone or something.

Enjoyed the report, thanks for posting. I went out to Reimer's on Saturday. It's really looking like there's going to be a run out there this year. The water is kind of high right now, but there is still some good moving water about 50 to 100 yards upstream from the boat launch. No White Bass being caught right now, but it should only be a few weeks now. I was looking through some old photos and I have some from 2010 where I caught White Bass at Reimer's mid February timeframe.

The males should be moving in as we speak at Reimers. Such a fun place to fish. Not sure I can think of a place that will top it either.

Nothing wrong with that stringer. Nice job.