White Lake Largemouth Bass

White Lake is supposedly well-known for the clarity of its water, and if you hear about this from friends or read about it, you might be led to believe it has the clearest water in the state, even better than Round Valley. For all I know, maybe it does through the winter, but today, though the water was plenty clear, it wasn't nearly as clear as was Tilcon Lake in March. Just the same, last June, Matt and I found Tilcon not as clear as we found it early this year.

Oliver had holdover trout on his mind, so the first order of business, once the squareback got launched, was to set up the sonar, switch it on, and begin looking. This took me less than a minute to do, and we had already motored over 26 feet of water. We went clear across the lake trying to mark trout, cutting the electric to drift little shiners, but the wind was so heavy that we would have needed heavy egg sinkers to get any depth. My having overlooked bringing any along mattered to me very little, because I didn't see much point in trying for trout apparently scattered and inaccessible, only one fish having shown on the graph.

We got in close to shore, found the drop-off, and began marking plenty of fish. Oliver sighted a bass. We rigged with crankbaits and began trolling the edge. When we neared a corner, I decided to cut the electric, anchor, and fish a Senko. It took awhile, but the result was the bass you see below in mid-air. I hooked it about 18 feet down, a two-pounder, and though Oliver caught it on his camera, you can see in the next photo the best I did. I touched the bass, having seen the hook was lose and knowing the likelihood of not boating it, and I never got a grip on its maw.

We tried another spot that we had noticed looked good while we trolled, and then decided to go to the back of the lake. I hoped to get us out of the wind. We found some submerged treetrunks. Depth was 12 feet or so. I pitched the Senko in among them and let it glide on down. It's a way of fishing that requires patience, and a lot of guys will not do it. They rely on weighted plastics, and though I have no argument against fishing that way, at least not when it really comes down to it, I give unweighted Senkos all the time they need to sink to bottom. I fished with Eric Evans a couple of times from his bassboat, and on one of the occasions, he did really well with a weighted swimbait he bounced on bottom only seven or eight feet down, but I also do the same patient fishing with traditional-style worms that sink twice as slowly as Senkos.

I noticed my line move to the left, tightened the connection and set the hook, nervous about line getting tangled in timber, feeling heavy weight for a couple of seconds--that delicious feeling of a good bass on--and then suddenly the line felt lose. It happened so fast it was like the bass was trying to get in my face. Right there in front of us it was airborne, the big mouth wide open, the Senko flying free. Seventeen or 18 inches.

After that it was a pretty trying day. Oliver sighted a bass. He had a couple of fish take minnows, which he lost. I felt perplexed, because we had definitely found a nice, rounded corner with pads near the bank, plenty of weeds filling out a drop that didn't descend too sharply, all the deep water nearby a bass could ever want. I fished my Senko deep, in the weeds, and I put it against grass. Sometimes a big bass will be in a foot of water. Oliver spotted a pickerel about two feet long among weeds. I plugged and plugged for that one or the likes of it with a Rebel Pop-R. I put a weedless frog on the pads. Nothing happened and I know it sometimes gets like this. Fish are there, but they will not take any interest in what you toss them.

I got nervous as sunset neared, because I had read a sign at the gate. It told me that gate closes at sunset. Oliver kept quelling my anxiety, pointing out other boats on the lake showing no intentions of going in. In any event, we would get the canoe on my Honda, but no way did I want us to have to carry it two hundred yards. I've been through that sort of thing before. We lingered, nothing happening, when finally Oliver's rod bent double and a bass went airborne. That's the bass of the cover shot, a pretty nice one caught on a Senko. I felt relieved. Oliver wasn't skunked.

Oliver found this toad at Brian's house where the canoe is kept.

Wawayanda