Lower Haw River 4/19-White Bass

[flyakker]

Took the yak out to the Haw River yesterday for the first non-wading fishing trip of the new year. Launched at Robeson creek canoe area and joined the small crowd of other boats, yaks, canoes and bank fishermen who were working the same general area. The water level was up a little and slightly off color.....just enough to get the white bass moving on their spawn runs.

The first hour or two was tough as I tried to figure out what the white bass wanted cause they were not biting too aggressively. The key was down-sizing my lures and working them in the upper 2-3 feet of the water column. Best results were on a 3" paddle tail Mystic Shad LPT retreived erratically (this worked better than a stready retrieve and much better than larger swirl tail grubs). Conditions for paddling got worse after noon when the wind kicked up and kept blowing the rest of the day. At the end of the day I landed 15 fish (all white bass-males) the largest being around 14" in length.