07-16-2010, 09:00 AM
I got the chance to take my youngest daughter and her friend David fishing at the Riverpark a couple days ago and we had a really, really good time. I knew that the bass and stripe had been chasing shad on top so we stopped and picked up a couple dozen minnows (Medium sized) and a box of nightcrawlers and hit the water hoping to get into some fish. We had a decent evening of it, not great numbers wise but we had a ball. We started out fishing the slack water behind the wing wall and that area is absolutely loaded with gar. So many in fact that we had a tough time keeping them from stealing the minnows. David did manage to hook one briefly before it jumped a couple of time and threw the hook. They were so good at stealing the bait that I was worried about running out so I stuck to artificials (Cranks, dropshots, roadrunners, and jig/trailers) and left the live bait to the kids. Katie struck first with a pig of a bluegill and David was not far behind with a nice one of his own. They traded back and forth on them for a little while catching them and having a ball. I was throwing cranks for awhile with no takers so I swithched over to a berkley Gulp minnow and tried dropshotting for a while, still with no takers. I then switched over to a 1/4 oz chart/brown jig with a zoom trailer and I started picked up some fish. I missed the first couple and then had a good fish, for me anyway, suck it in. I dont have a scale or tape on my boat but it was probably close to a 4lb LM and around 18" or 19" inches long. The fish was very skinny and might have weighed more had it been good and fat. As the sun started dropping the schoolers showed up so I switched over to a Roadrunner and started picking up fish on nearly every cast. The were busting shad right along the current seam near the rockpile. It was a mix of SM, LM, and yellow bass. We dd not catch the first White bass, which I thought was odd. The schoolies didn't last long because about the time I got the young'uns a roadrunner tied on and ready to get in on the action some jerk ran by about 30ft away right through where they were busting the shad on top and put them down for the evening. They never did come back and like they were before. After that I think Katie and David both picked up smallish blue cats on minnows and David caught a nice smallie. A great afternoon spent with a couple of great kids!!! Exscuse the pics, they were taken on a camera phone..