Long Island White Bass

Kate and I went fishing with Bryan Terrill tonight. We caught about 12 white bass (Morone chrysops) and BT caught his first catfish and his first double. We had a beautiful night to enjoy.

Schooling White Bass

I've been getting reports of schooling white bass on the upper end of Long Island. So tuesday evening (7/3/12) I had about an hour so I ran and launched the boat and raced to the island. Fish were breaking as I arrived (~8:20 p.m.) and I caught several fish on a Heddon Zara puppy and a silver Castmaster spoon.

Springtime White Bass

I went up the Emory River this afternoon to check and see if the white bass were making their spring run up the river to spawn. I started about 1:00 p.m. and drove the boat as far as I could up the river to the shoals (~1 mile up from the launch at Flour Mill Flats). I used 1/8 ounce lead head with a mister twister chartreuse grub double rigged. I hit several spots picking up one white bass every now and then, but never finding good numbers of fish stacked up in one area. By 2:30 p.m. I had 10, but still couldn't find any concentrations of fish. I figured they just weren't up the river in large numbers yet and was considering loading up and heading down to Watts Bar to crappie fish. As I was firing up and heading down river to the ramp, I saw one more spot I thought I would give a try - it was a stretch of sandy shoreline with down timber. I picked up a nice fish right away, then another, then another, before I knew it I had 30 fish off two down trees in 20' of shoreline. The boat was in about 10' of water and I was casting all the way up to the bank slowly bringing it back. The graph was showing a pretty sharp drop off from ~4.5' to 10' with a great concentration of fish on the drop. Over the next two hours I proceeded to catch fish pretty much constantly, many two at a time. Many of the fish were males, discharging sperm all over my boat, and the others were females stuffed with eggs - its obvious these fish are in the height of their spawn.  I kept the best 4 white bass (14 - 16") for our next fish fry. Kimberly had just gotten home from a spring break cruise with Alex's family so I had to leave earlier than I normally would but I wound up with at total of 101 white bass for the day. I guess they have decided to make their spring run...

White Bass Galore

I took Kate and Adam up to the usual spot (this time of year) above Long Island.  We were sitting around the Sage’s swimming pool and decided to go at the last minute, so launched at Center Farm at ~8:00 p.m. and started fishing by 8:15.  We had a great time and caught ~ 15 white bass on white tube jigs and shad colored Spro jigs.  We were back at the house by 9:45 p.m.  The sunset is always so beautiful this time of year at this spot. Thank you Lord for the immense blessing that comes from getting to enjoy quality time with loved ones in the setting of your beautiful creation. 

Fishin' with the Interns

I took Will Tullock and Christian Allen (summer interns from Strata-G) to the flat above Long Island.  We started about 5:30 p.m.. This was Christian’s first time to ever fish in a boat.  I got good sized (~2.5-3.5”) shad minnows in Center Farm, and we headed up river.  Unfortunately, this time of year arriving too early can create some discouragement – thus the old adage that patience is so important when fishing.  We really weren’t catching much on the flat – just an occasional small catfish – so we ran down river to the smallmouth point across from the eagle nest, and we got to see a bald eagle just sitting up on the bluff. We only caught a few small catfish.  Next we ran back up to the flat above Long Island to finish out the evening.  We ended up catching a few white bass, but overall it was disappointing considering how many fish we have been catching lately.  This is a picture of Christian – I believe this is probably the first white bass he’s ever caught.  We all had a really good time.  Check out the incredible sunset the good Lord painted for us tonight.