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Fishing Stories from Ned Kehde |
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Submitted by Ned Kehde - January 31, 2001 Kehde family is hooked on hooking wipers Others are attracted by its pugnacious attitude, which is epitomized by savage strikes and long, electric runs, making it the best fight in freshwater. There are, however, some fishermen who say that the wiper's habits can be so maddening that it is comparable to the woes of unrequited love. It has even been said that wiper anglers seem be afflicted with masochistic tendencies. Perhaps what makes the wiper so confounding is that it is a man-made species, coming for a mixture in a laboratory of the milt and eggs of a white bass and striped bass. Thus it is a hybrid and doesn't have a sex life. And such noted anglers as John Geirach of Colorado say that they categorically refuse to pursue a fish that doesn't naturally procreate, hinting that a lack of sex life makes a fish too indecipherable. Other critics complain that the hatching and stocking of wipers are an expensive and frivolous endeavor. According to the proponents of this view, the fisheries biologists should spend their time and money on nurturing the species that grow naturally. Nevertheless, several anglers in the Kehde family are afflicted with wiper mania. We suspect our passion commenced on May 19, 1986, when Roger Kehde of Sedalia, Mo., at the tender age of 15, caught a 15-pound wiper on a Cotton Cordell Near Nuthin' at the Lake of the Ozarks near Warsaw, Mo. Since then, Roger and his father, John Kehde of Sedalia, Mo., have become two of the most capable wiper anglers in the northern Ozarks, often winning or placing high on the leaderboards at the white bass and wiper tournaments held at the Lake of the Ozarks. During the past 14 years, they have caught and released an inestimable number of wipers at Truman Lake; some of them weighed as much as 18 pounds. On Jan. 23, John and Roger Kehde brought their expertise to La Cygne Lake. On this day, the lakes across the northern Ozarks were too icy to fish, and, except for La Cygne and Coffey County lakes, all the reservoirs in northeastern Kansas were ice covered. Upon John and Roger's arrival at La Cygne at 10 a.m., a thin hazy hung across the sky, the wind angled from the north at 6 mph, area thermometers sat at 32 degrees, the water temperature fluctuated from 67 to 54 degrees, and a few fish frolicked on the surface. Upon their departure at 3:30 p.m., the weather was delightful: sunny, 45 degrees, windless. Roger and John's forte is employing two- and three-ounce spoons. But they are exceptionally adroit with a jig. At La Cygne they primarily wielded a three-inch shad-colored Bass Assassin affixed to a 3/8-ounce jighead, and times they tried a Worden's 1/4-ounce Roost Tail, a 1/4-ounce marabou jig and a Smithwick Rogue. Around 10:l5 a.m., John spied a congregation of wipers roaming a 200-yard stretch of the eastern shoreline in 54-degree water. Until 11:20 a.m., Roger and John, wielding Bass Assassins, tangled with more than a score of bellicose wipers and ultimately landed and released 15 of them that weighed from three to 7.4 pounds. Then the wipers disappeared. For the next four hours, Roger and John searched in vain for more wipers. Instead, they inadvertently caught and released 50 white bass and largemouth bass, proving once again that the seductive wiper is the most perplexing species in our waters. |
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