Blue Water, Blue Cats

 

Lake Keystone’s water clarity at this writing is as good as I’ve seen it since before last May’s floods. It’s as good as it gets all the way to the dam, and the fishing it provides shows it.

Stripers, catfish, sand bass, and crappie are definitely coming on strong, with the first two species mentioned actually leading the charge ahead of the sandies and crappie. That’s a little different than what we expect in this country, somewhat the reverse order, but that could easily change this week with predicted warmer air temperatures. 

Some of us have been jug lining both major arms of the lake, baiting up with live shad, and bringing in some nice blue cats up to thirty-five pounds out of that blue water. Where’s the frying pan? Got grease? 

Jack Test and his boys of Guymon, drove down to my place for dinner the other night, and a wild two day outing on the Cimarron Arm of the lake. Jack, his son Bryon, and grandsons J.B. and Jacob, and friend Jim Mattocks, lined out their fishing plans over Pam’s chicken enchiladas, then went out and made them happen in some of the most brutal weather conditions imaginable, clear water or not. 

Some of you may remember last weekend’s brutal north wind, cold temperatures, and rough water out on the lake. You drive six hours, one way, to go fishing after a winter of none, and a “little” cold weather and big waves won’t keep you indoors. Guymon, by the way, sits smack in the middle of some of the driest country in America. I call it a desert. 

Other than ponds, and few of them, there is no decent fishing closer to them than roughly 150 miles away down around Amarillo. 

Why not drive to Keystone where their resident licenses are good, and the fishing is always (always) decent? Maybe pick up a free meal or two out at the Vollertsen’s, and they do; sometimes two or three times a late winter and early spring before the country gets hot. 

They found the blue cats hungry where Brian Loveland and I do, up on the Cimarron River arm of the lake at this time of the year, and had more trouble finding bait shad than they did hungry blues. Once the jugs were baited, dropped at different depths, they began catching fish almost immediately; some taking the bait right behind the boat before all the other jugs could be placed. 

Temperatures dropped, and the wind howled, the whole time they were here. It’s hard to explain fishing success and failure most of the time, particularly at this time of the year. Cold fronts like we’ve had the last couple of weeks are supposed to turn the fishing off. 

The Tests caught enough fish for a fish fry in the desert before they left, the weather still cold and brutal as they loaded the boat for the long trip home. 

One of the days they were here, I drove down below the dam and watched lots of big stripers up to ten pounds being dragged out on shoreline rocks on both sides of the river by hardy, weatherproof anglers throwing both live shad and plastic baits into the dam’s tailrace. Some, without live shad, were catching good numbers of both sand bass and crappie on small jigs. 

The key seemed to be to tough-out the weather; stand there and take it, and wait for the fish to start biting. Again. Those that did that were catching fish. 

It was dealer’s choice down there below the dam. I saw one guy in a kayak midstream (more and more common) deal himself an icy bath when he got crossways in that current, roll over, and have to be fished out by a bigger boat anchored nearby. 

There was a lot of yelling, screaming and frigid, blue water. Not Conrad’s cup of tea in March. Maybe “back in the day.” 

At this stage of my life, what I want is what the Tests had: A big, dry boat, high off the water; some bait, blue water, blue cats, and a frying pan. 

I’m a simple man.

© 2016 Conrad M. Vollertsen