Submitted photo The author’s sons Jackson , left, and AJ celebrate the first of many white bass on a recent outing with smiles for the camera.

This spring has afforded us blissful moments of calm weather, sunny skies, and ideal conditions. Unfortunately, it’s usually been only for about four hours on perhaps one or two days out of the week, and usually not on the weekend. With that brief and beautiful window magically opening on Saturday afternoon, I quickly grabbed a selection of rods and small tackle to hit the water with my boys, in hopes of catching some stocked trout or really anything with fins that would bend their ultralights and provide some stimulation other than screens that have filled much of this cold, windy spring.


On our arrival, the last of the north wind faded to a slight breeze, and the sun warmed our faces as we looked south across the small water. Tying jigs on the end of both boys’ line, in the hopes that a few stocked trout were active, I scanned the surface for activity. Helping work a wind knot out after my oldest boy’s first cast, I offered him up something a bit heavier to help cover more water from shore, and he picked out a gold spinner as his lure of choice from the trout box. I suggested a long cast, and he flipped the bail, pinched the line, and loaded the rod up before flinging the bait out in a high, spanning arch which splashed down about 30 feet from shore. With a sudden jump about halfway back to our position on shore, his rod tip doubled over and shook violently, bending with the authority of a fish I was certain was a bit bigger than the stocked trout that are normally added to the community fishing hole each spring. I caught a thick, silver flash just under the surface as the unknown opponent neared, while still pulling some drag from the small reel loaded with four-pound test line. Shocked, I shouted, “I think it’s a white bass!” 


Indeed, it was; and as it flipped and splashed in the shallows along the rocky shore, memories of my formative fishing years came flashing back like the blur of silver scales before us. I barely had time to think about those countless evenings on my home waters where I learned the same skills — long casts beyond the schools, covering water efficiently, adjusting drag according and triggering reaction bites thanks to what seemed at the time to be an inexhaustible supply of white bass — when my youngest son connected with one on his small jig.

With both fish landed and released, I quickly switched his offering over to a silver spinner of about the same size as his brother’s to help cover more water, and the afternoon was set to an amazing autopilot of adjusting casting lanes, advising on the speed of retrieve, and how to set the hook when they felt a bump in their lures’ return to shore. 


After about 30 of the silver fish from the school before us, my oldest boy landed the one and only stocked trout we had come to the water expecting to catch, and with that slight variation he declared himself done for the day; going out on a high note, but stating his arms were beginning to tire from the constant action. My youngest would have nothing to do with it, and he bargained for five more casts or at least one more of the white bass that had filled our wonderful window on the water. He’d get two of them in his final handful of casts, and with that, dubbed it a good afternoon. 


While they weren’t the expected quarry that has colored our previous springs on the small flow, the white bass brought energy to a long-awaited spring opening. Seizing the moment, both boys shook the rust from their casting arms, faced off with fun new opportunities, and ultimately, experienced something new coming from a favorite place…in our outdoors.