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Fishing Stories from Ned Kehde |
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Submitted by Ned Kehde - April 22 Two anglers pursue smallmouth on Melvern This noble fish is a relative newcomer to these parts. Back in the early l980s, a few pint-sized smallmouths lurked around the dam at Clinton Lake, but ranks of anglers abused these acrobatic and pugnacious creatures, and they quickly perished. Until Coffey County Lake's bountiful population of smallmouths was opened to public fishing on Oct. 1, 1996, smallmouth devotees hereabouts had to travel to the Ozarks or Wilson and Milford lakes or to the northwoods of Minnesota and Canada to tangle with their quarry. About the same time eastern Kansas anglers began appreciating the manifold virtues of the smallmouth bass at Coffey, rumors spread that Leonard Jirak, a fisheries biologist for the Kansas Wildlife and Parks, had stocked 308 eight-inch smallmouths into Melvern in September of 1994. Then by the fall of 2000, smallmouth aficiandoes such as Dick Bessey of Shawnee and Clyde Holscher of Topeka discovered that those 308 smallmouths had multiplied copiously and grown to handsome proportions. According to Bessey and Holscher's best calculations, an egg-laden female from the 1994 stocking ought to weigh nearly six pounds this spring. So these two anglers and some friends set their sights on catching such a specimen during the weeks before the spawn, which can occur when the water temperature exceeds 56 degrees. On the late afternoon of March 22, Holscher and a friend made their first smallmouth trip of the spring to Melvern Lake. The water was exceedingly clear, measuring more than six feet of visibility, and the lake was about four feet low. The surface temperature registered 44 degrees; the wind angled from the northeast at 12 mph; area thermometers hit a high of 64 degrees. For three hours, these two anglers employed a Rapala Husky Jerk and a Smithwick Rogue, slowly twitching them across four rocky points. They failed to catch the big one, but they caught and released two three-pounders and battled two good-sized ones that they didn't see. Bessey and a friend visited Melvern for the first time on the afternoon of Mar. 29. Then the water temperature ranged from 46 to 50 degrees. A south breeze blew at three to 10 mph, and the bright sun warmed the late afternoon air to 57 degrees. These two anglers worked Rogues and small jigs on rocky points and along three stretches of rip-rap shorelines. They managed to catch and release a four-pounder and a smaller one, but not the giant they sought. It was until the afternoon of April 17 that Bessey and his friend tangled with that titan of their dreams. On this day, a frosty cold front pummeled the Melvern area, dropping early morning temperatures to 30 degrees, and a chilly wind jetted out of the northeast at 13 mph. By 4 p.m., however, the sun warmed the air to 59 degrees, and the lake's surface temperature ranged from 56 to 61 degrees. But because of two weeks of extremely strong winds, the water visibility decreased to three feet. The two anglers probed several miles of rocky points and shorelines with white spinnerbaits, Wiggle Warts and Berkely Power Grubs on 1/16-ounce jigheads. When that big smallmouth engulfed the Power Grub in three feet of water, it made several long electric runs and many acrobatic somersaults. And as it finally came submissively to the surface, the grub became dislodged from the brute's mouth. And quick as a wink the fish of their dreams darted out of sight and became fodder for many more reveries. |
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