"In essence," concludes Kehde, "you just have to try different approaches to see what works."

FALL
Researchers from South Dakota also contributed to the recent white bass symposium. Dave Willis, Craig Paukert, and Brian Blackwell documented various biological and social particulars of white bass in northern natural lakes. In their paper, "Biology of White Bass in Eastern South Dakota Glacial Lakes," they state that although walleyes attract the most angling attention, white bass command a loyal following.

"Two primary white bass lakes are Poinsett and Kampeska, where white bass ranked first in total fish harvest by number during 6 of 10 years of creel survey," they note. "In 3 of the other 4 years, white bass harvest ranked second only to walleye harvest." Most interesting for this postspawn discussion of natural lakes is that seasonal pressure for silvers is spread out over several months, more so than pressure in South Dakota's Missouri River reservoirs.

"Fall is a good time to target white bass in our natural lakes," says Brian Blackwell, fisheries biologist with the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks. "We find that people who are typically fishing for walleyes from mid-September through early November make incidental but good catches of white bass in shallow, near-shore waters."

THE WHITE BASS NIGHT BITE The night white bite has been restlessly researched by insomnia-afflicted fishermen for decades. According to In-Fisherman field editor Ned Kehde, Guido Hibdon pioneered this pattern sometime in the late 60s. "Hibdon made this discovery because he just loved to fish, no matter the hour," says Kehde. "And many times he went against prevailing angling theory. Some areas that he fished did not look good, in the classical sense, because a channel breakline wasn't anywhere close to where the fish were. Hibdon wasn't afraid to fish these non-classical areas. That's why we know about this great pattern today." Kehde grew up fishing with Hibdon and says the pathological pursuit of nighttime white bass began in fall, around Halloween. With success the contagion grew, and additional work found that the night bite extended from Memorial Day weekend through the first week in December. The pattern works in highland lakes, which are long, narrow reservoirs with numerous coves and steep bluffs. As for other waters, Kehde suggests looking for lakes with relatively clear water, typically with 5 feet of visibility or greater. "Night fish predominantly use the main-lake points -- the first bars that come out from each cove into the main body of the lake -- right next to the bank," Kehde says. "Occasionally they locate on secondary points -- smaller features farther down into the bays. We put the trolling motor down, move into the wind, and keep the boat a cast-length off the land to work down the shoreline. Most fish are caught within ten feet of the shore. In some cases we'll go over one area multiple times because, at night, there can be a phenomenal number of fish crammed into one locale."

Kampeska (5,250 acres) and Poinsett (7,900 acres) are natural bowl-shaped lakes with large, shallow basins that receive plenty of wind. As with most lakes in eastern South Dakota, these are eutrophic, highly productive systems holding turbid water, an important key to bringing fall fish shallow.

White bass forage is surprisingly diverse in the glacial lakes and helps to explain why fall fishing success occurs where it does. "We've done some food habits work on whites in Kampeska, and what we've found is that they eat a lot of larval insects most of the year," says Blackwell. "In fact, invertebrates are a bigger component of the diet than fish. We also found that white bass eat crayfish in these lakes. Pretty much all fish utilize whatever food source is available, and because we lack shad populations in the glacial lakes, crayfish represent an important prey item.

"There are no gizzard shad so we don't see that typical open-water feeding component," adds Blackwell. "Though they're not as widely used, spottail, emerald shiners, and some yellow perch make up part of the diet. The shiner species inhabits shallower areas, which may be why we see movement of white bass toward shore during low light hours in the fall -- to take advantage of the abundant minnow populations."

This autumn movement of white bass toward shore also takes place in some Kansas flatland reservoirs. "It really gets good near the middle of October when water temps reach the mid-50F range," says Kehde. "And it stays good until the water temperature hits about 44F, which normally occurs, in our area, in the first ten days of December. Our goal is to catch 101 white bass on each outing. On one November day, for instance, we fished a 150-yard stretch of bank for about four hours and caught 135 white bass, including some 15- and 16-inchers. This catch illustrates how good the fishing can be."

Continued -- click on page link below.