06-13-2010, 09:00 AM
I had gotten my hair cut yesterday and while talking with my barber, fishing came up in conversation. I have taken fish to my barber before, always crappie, but the topic of the white bass that I have been catching came up and she said that she would be interested in trying some. I went out at about 10 AM and fished for about an hour and 15 minutes, until the big boats just about swamped me. I had caught 5 nice ones and I ran them over to her shop. She will eat well on them for a while. Here's a pic of a couple of them. These fish are deep and I am only using my crappie tackle with 1/16 oz jigs. Today some of the fish wanted a very active retrieve with me counting the bait down and then reeling my reel very fast for two turns and then pausing for 10-12 seconds before two more quick turns of the reel handle. The fish are not related to the bottom but to the level of the bait it seems. One came on the drop as I saw the line twitch at about a 30 count. One of the fish came counting down to 30 and using my usual crappie retrieve, two very slow turns of the reel then a 2-4 second pause. I think that I did catch one vertically jigging too, about 5-6 feet off the bottom. I was using 2" BG shads with a chartreuse dyed tail. The bites are subtle and are very similar to crappie bites with only a small twitch seen on the pause. Once you set the hook however you know that you have something much more substantial than a crappie. These fish have been in the same area now for about 2 weeks and I hope that they will continue to be there for the summer.