Yeah I have been catching lots of white bass for over a few weeks now. They are active and hanging out pretty close to the banks. I don't keep them but they fight hard and are fun to catch.

Oklahomans call them sand bass. Took me two years to figure out sand bass were white bass.

I had a fish break my line. First fish of the season, where I felt it was going to be a big one. I hooked her, she took off and my drag was not even close to set.

I was using a Johnny Morris spinner on six lb test. I hate spinner reels but it was an Xmas gift. I went to bass pro and bought me a new baitcast and rod today, $170. Most I've ever spent on a rod/reel.

New house is on a lake so I went out and re-bought shit I threw away years ago.

Grabbed a Berkley graphite rod and a Shimano Spirex w/ the rear drag. Seems like most people prefer the front drag but I like the ability to adjust the drag as I'm bringing something in. It also has the trigger on the gate so I can flip the bail open with my pointing finger on my right hand. Just a handful of little features that I liked and it felt very smooth.

So far everything I catch seems to be about a 1 lb small-mouth so I'm pretty sure the thing is incredibly underfished keeping everything fairly small but maybe I'll find some better spots when I get a boat and get out there a little more. I've pulled surprisingly large crappie and sunfish so it seems like there's some decent fish in there and I just need to find them. It's a large pond as much as it is a small lake so it'll be paddle-boat at best.

Get a fishing kayak. They maneuver well and there are tons of ways to outfit it with neat accessories. They are also pretty cheap starting at around $500.

They are pulling some monster rainbows out of Bennet Spring State Park. Weavers posted a picture of a 5 pounder this morning. That is a massive fish for that stream. I'm wondering how they are pulling these big fish out with the flooding that occurred down there early this year.

Because many of the lunkers that they release throughout the season all washed out of the hatchery in to the spring and the river.

BTW, I saw that picture this morning too. I would shit if I ever hooked one that big.

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...c8&oe=57BCE5DD

Those are the size they catch out in the mountains where these things are naturally. Opening day there were at least 7 caught according to weavers. That's the size of the Brown Trout they pull out of there.

We were there the weekend after opening day and there were a lot in the 3-4 lb range on Weaver's lunker board. The largest was over 7 lbs. We fished exclusively in the river and caught a shitload. A lot of them were really small but we got into some areas much larger. No lunkers though. I caught over 70 in 2.5 days. Best fishing I've ever experienced there.

One of two things:

they are fat stocker brooders that were put in the river after they were already big.

or

fish are VERY good at staying put during flooding. They will almost always move up into the shallower, slower water during flooding.


I lean toward number 1. Wild fish (or fish that are holdovers from previous seasons) are never that fat. They just don't look like that. THIS is what a fish that has been in a river a while looks like:

http://www.aardvarkmcleod.com/wp-con...0/p1000702.jpg

See how strong and lean it is, and see how the fins are nice and crisp? That's in stark contrast to a hatchery trout, which may turn into fat abominations from learning to gorge on pellets at the hatchery.

Any of you guys ever strayed down to Spring River and trout fished? Grew up on it, never was a big trout guy.

Caught an assload of goggle eye, smallmouth and walleye down there though.

I've been out on the Kansas river three times this spring, all i have to show is one god damn Drum.

They're catching the fire out of the white bass at Norfork right now. Or atleast they were the last few weeks.

I have a trip to a new creek planned for this weekend, its supposed to be in the low 70s

http://www.lake-link.com/Illinois-La...ounty-Illinois

So I have been using my Deeper fish finder from the bank. I love it. It has really changed the way I view some of the places I have taken it already. The depths are way different than I thought in a few areas and it also helped me avoid wasting time in areas not holding any fish.

It reads the water temperature and I took it out this past Saturday and found an area of the reservoir that was 5 degrees warmer than off the damn where I started and didn't see much. This told me right away this might be where the crappie are hanging out and sure enough I found a hole that was about three feet deeper in a small spot and the fish were in that area. We didn't catch a ton but we ended with 8 good keepers and a few non keepers and the usual misses. It was great knowing the depth to concentrate fishing at so you aren't just guessing.

It also helped because when I threw it 10 yards either direction no fish were showing up on the finder. If I didn't have it we surely would have spent more time in a wider area with no idea what was going on or why fish weren't nearby. We could focus on the one area with the knowledge of why that area was the spot holding fish.

Thats sounds like an awfully handy little gadget