As we began today, we found a few white bass pushing shad (which were in shallow water attempting to spawn) to the bank and to the surface.  This action was sporadic, but, I hated to pass it up, so we threw a few casts into the fray hooking and losing one pretty quickly.  Casting was not Linda’s strong suit, so we moved on.

We only fished two general areas today and found ample white bass action with a few hybrid sprinkled in for good measure in 18-25 feet of water.  Choosing wind-blown shorelines was a key to success today as the annual threadfin shad spawn gets underway.

Live bait fishing is fairly straightforward as long as you keep the shad slightly above the level of the fish, and we accomplished that with the aid of sonar.  Twice during our trip I saw opportunities to catch fish more efficiently with artificial baits than live bait would allow for.  In one instance, a school of white bass came right up under the boat, so we used slabs to “smoke” for them.  Another time a large school of white bass settled into the centerline of a cove we were already fishing, and were easily caught on bladebaits cast out to them.

Now you can’t let a lifelong fireman come aboard without asking him for a good fire-fighting story.  Richard’s a humble sort of guy, so, Linda spoke up for him and told of the time he was hospitalized with some manner of debris in his eye following a big fire.  As he was examined, still in his fire-fighting garb, the physician noted that his helmet was partially melted and that the reflectors were all melted off of his firefighting coat.  Richard admitted, “Yeah, I got a little close on that one.”.   I’m not sure if he was joking or not when he said they still have that coat and helmet to show the rookies how close to the flames NOT to get.

We got talking about what specialty Ben wishes to pursue; right now he’s aiming at shipboard enforcement operations.  We also got to talk about what his concerns are; on the top of the list — the flight there, as Ben is decidedly not a fan of aircraft.  Next on the list was the “in your face” instruction associated with military basic training.  I told him generations had endured this tradition, and he could, too.

It was great to hear a young man express his dissatisfaction with drifting from odd job to odd job and now to be honed in on a purpose and be enthusiastic about pursuing his goal.

Fishing-wise, we had a tough day.  Winds were up over 20 mph for the last half of the trip, and the bite just wasn’t on too well in the first half.  Long story short, we ended up with 4 white bass and 1 largemouth bass, all on crankbaits, although we tried bladebaits up shallow early on, some deep water jigging, and some deep water downrigging.

Semper Paratus!  Always Ready!  Do well, Ben!