Rule of the day – Be versatile and have FUN

Some of the most enjoyable days I have on the water with a client is when we start the day with an open mind and accept what Mother Nature is willing to give up. This week I had another one of those great experiences with Roger. Wanting to seek Whitebass, we hit the Wolf River/ Poygen area to see if we could get them lit up. Like everywhere else in this region, we were greeted with high dirty water from all the excessive rains in the past week.

The morning started out with two things that led me to believe that we were going to have an awesome day. Roger knew we were on the front side of the whitebass moving into the river and stated “ I’m versatile for anything” and “We’re gonna have some Fun!”. As guide, this opens a lot of doors to provide a number of techniques and a wide variety of species to bend the rod!

We started out tossing some lipless Live Target baits to search for some eager whities on major current break. With the locator looking like the dead sea, I was about to pull the plug on this spot and move when a nice Smallie slammed a Gizzard Shad and put on an aerial show. Not huge by any means, but a respectable 3# fish and a great feeling for starting the morning.

We hit a couple more staging areas in the lake to find them empty. So we made the journey to see what the Wolf River was willing to offer. A quick glance of a H/Bird side scan shown a number of fish stacked on a small seam near the mouth of the river. I positioned the boat ahead of the seam and let Roger get to work generating some FUN. Rogers first pitch of a Pearl Blue BFN – K Grub along some wood on the slack side of the seam produced a nice Large Mouth that gave a lot of rod bending action.

Taking notice to a few fish hugging the bottom beneath the boat on the H/bird, I had to add another technique to the mix. Slowly pulsating at 1/4oz white and pink blade bait on the calm side of the seam instantly produced a healthy 18” eye. Alternating baits ( the blade and grub) along the small seam produced a couple hours’ worth of action.; boating walleyes, Large Mouth, and a few Smallies. A humorous moment came when I told Roger all he had left was to hammer a sheepshead. On que, a small drum slammed the blade bait and left us laughing.

On that note, we wanted to hit a few more holes for some active whitebass. Hole hopping up the river became a redundant process. We marked little to no fish in the typical spots. But spotting a combination of a current break, rock, and some timber was a sure fire way to have the rods bending and bass jumping. We did tie into a few whities, but the aggressive manor of the bass was too much to resist. So we carried on pitching in a few cuts and sloughs.

A Heron turned us on to a good tip – crappies are coming in! We watched a heron snatch a black crappie. Funny to see the shape of the crappie in its throat as it flew off. But again, it was being versatile that contributed top the rods continuing to bend. A pair of 32nd oz jigs and a couple 2” Fin-S in smoke glitter were the ticket to start picking off some crappies. Disappointed in the size, we returned to the main river to finish out our day.

Like a well maintained machine, we stuck bass in all the traditional places you expect for high water-pre spawn bass. Our day ended on a very memorable experience for Roger. After commenting that this was the most amount of bass he has ever caught in one outing, the nearly unthinkable happened. Taking the “one last cast” produced what we thought would be the biggest mess of the day. Roger took a very long cast parallel with the shoreline, targeting a treetop that was down river. The wind immediately suspended the line and carried it up and over a 3” limb hanging about 5’ over the water. As I was telling Roger to reel up slowly until the crank was just inches away from the limb – A LM bass decided it was time for dinner and crushed his airborne Gizzard Shad as it exited the water. Well, I always fished on the theory of “Worry about hooking them first; then worry about getting them out. We had plenty of laughter as we navigated the boat through a log jam and untangled the mess. Kudos to Roger for remaining calm and helping me pass that rod up/over/down/and around the logs to get his line free. That effort put the final fish of the day in the boat, a great healthy Large Mouth.

For not hitting out targeted quarry, I think we gained the better experience of the day. We had about 10 hours on the water and never went a long period of time without the rods bending….and…. Hey, isn’t that what makes fishing so FUN!