The Cinderella of Devils Lake Fish Species Finally Gets Her Slipper
You drill in to a likely Perch habitat in 40-45 feet of water and drop your Gold Varmint down. Immediately, 2 hyper-active, monster marks zoom up from the bottom to meet your lure at t-minus 5 feet. One actually zooms right past your lure and the other stops right on it and hangs there for a couple seconds, before drifting back to the bottom.
The initial veracity of the rise of those two fish has you excited and not quite ready to label them Yo-Yo’s. You bring your lure to the bottom and let it sit there, and nothing. You jig a little and nothing, you jig a lot and yank up a couple ‘high ball’ calls to try to attract attention and…
JACKPOT, the bottom erupts!
Monster marks and it looks like the Perch Gold Mine has been discovered.
You dance the school up and have a Christmas Tree on the bottom. You work the school up 5-6 feet and one of them finally thumps your lure, and it’s a good one. Taking drag and really giving the line a tug.
You start working the fish up and something peculiar starts to happen. Instead of continuing the line drag and tug, your line starts to do circles around the hole like the wheels on the school bus going round and round.
What you initially had hoped was a thumper Devils Lake Jumbo Perch has now morphed into the ‘Drunk at Christmas Uncle that no one wants to talk about’ fish of the Big Devil:
THE WHITE BASS!
Some Background
Nate Lafleur is an accomplished fisherman. That is a drastic understatement. Nate’s species of choice is chasing monster pike in the spring and summer on the waters of Devil’s Lake. He made some headlines last spring with a monster of a northern caught on a fly that may or may not have topped the record books. We will never know.
Nate practices CPR with all of his behemoth catches and a scale was never put to this awesome fish. I frequently give him a hard time about allowing all of those Perch Killers to live, but have the utmost respect for his take on preserving the resource and wanting to build Devil’s Lake into an even better fishery.
That is not the only large Pike Nate has landed and he and his brother Blake, routinely land large Pike from the waters of Devil’s Lake.
WHITE BASS MASH UP
I digress however, we were talking about ole Mr. Whitey, and Nate pursues something unique on the hard water. He, and a band of friends hold the ‘White Bass Mash Up’ tournament every winter and for one weekend at least become White Bass chasers.
Devil’s lake is a World Renowned Walleye and Yellow Perch fishery. It’s ‘other’ species often get overlooked because of this, but her waters are teeming with Pike and White Bass.
The White Bass Mash Up is unique and a fun weekend for these guys and last year they iced over 140 white bass.
White Bass are fantastic fighters on the long rod in the summer. When you rip into a boiling school of whitey’s, pitching cranks in shallow water, it can be a fish on every cast with followers coming along for the ride right up to the boat. After 4 or 5 catch and releases your thumb is raw and we usually decide to move to avoid the pesky buggers.
In the winter…
through the ice…
on a short rod the fight can be epic.
They can spool your entire reel and circle your line around the hole, over and over and over. They aren’t easy to find in the winter and go kind of dormant, so they are not a real target species. However, if you find a school in deep water that is feeding you can put the smack down on them.
I’m not a big fan of Whiteys as I believe in eating what I catch and don’t have an affinity for the flesh of the White Bass. They are ok smoked I guess but I would much prefer a Perch or Walleye filet.
This year’s White Bass Mash Up coincided with the DLVFD fishing tournament and just as fish were hard to come by in that, the Mash Up crew was unable to connect on any of the Whiteys that swim the waters of Devils Lake. They were able to come away with a few buckets of Perch though, and you can bet that next winter, at this time, the same crew will be out on the ice searching for that next 100+ White Bass Day.
Mixed Bag
One positive I have taken from finding White Bass in 30+ feet of water in the winter time is often times the Whitey feeding frenzy will attract the attention of nearby Perch and the Perch school will sometimes join the party. We have had a few monster Perch days when we weeded through the pesky Whitey’s and cashed in on the Devil’s Lake Gold Mine below.
When you find this occurrence, we recommend putting on a larger and heavier lure. Usually, the White Bass school will be above the Perch and the trick to getting at the Perch is to try to drop your lure through the White Bass to the Perch lying on the bottom.
Mimic Marks
The White Bass signature on the Vexilar can also mimic that of a Crappie. We relish in chasing Crappie schools and a person can absolutely distinguish a crappie mark from that of a Perch or Walleye on an FL18 or FL28. You sometimes don’t know if you are sitting on a White Bass school or a Crappie Diamond Mine though, that is until you are able to catch one of them, and in the end, that is the goal of fishing for any species, turning a fishing trip into a catching trip.
Good Luck out there
Where can I fish for white bass? Never catch one thru the ice before.
They are in the basins right now, deep, 40+ feet. A sunny day is going to get them going and they will probably be right with the Perch. Try basins adjacent to sharp drop offs and at the ends of points. They are a fun fish to catch through the ice, that is for sure.