June 2, 2016

Date: June 2, 2016

Body of Water: Watkins Mill State Park, Excelsior Springs, Missouri

Weather:  Mostly sunny with little to no wind.

Air Temperature: 60’s at sunrise with a high of 82

Water Condition: Pretty clear considering all the rain we have had recently.\

Wind Speed & Direction: South but hardly a breeze at all

Moon Phase: Waning Crescent

Fishing Equipment: 9 foot Cortland 6 weight with floating line, medium heavy action spinning combo, & Zebco 202 with 8 pound line

Flies/Lures/Bait: John Deere, Leaf Fly, hollow body frog, and nightcrawlers

Hatches or Fish Behavior Observed: HUGE grass carp were feeding on the east side of the lake in coves and bluegill were feeding sparatically.

Species Targeted: Bass, Bluegill, Redear and Grass Carp

# of Fish Hooked: 12

# of Fish Landed: 10

# of Fish Released: 10

# of Fish Kept: 0

Largest Fish Description: 1 5inch, 1.5 pound bass caught on a leaf fly while targeting bluegill.

What Happened:

I used to go to Watkins Mill every mother's day for years with my mom, dad, and mom's side of the family.  I never had much success fishing there when I was little, but most of my time was spent swimming on the beach.  However, after reading about the good bass population and chance to catch trophy size redear sunfish, I talked my son (it didn't take much) into going on our first camping and fishing trip.  We camped in the park and the campground is pretty nice and close to the water.  We hit the water at 6:30 because that's when the park gates opened and found some male bluegill pretty quick.  I caught them on a John Deere and he caught them on worms.  He tired of bluegill pretty quick and I thought I would go after some bass in the moss and weeds with a hollow body frog on a spinning combo.  I only elicited one bite and missed him.  We then chased a VERY large grass carp for a while in a cove and threw a leaf imitating fly at him for a while.  I eluded us every time and never let us get close.  One time I think he actually swam up to the boat just to check us on and then let us know that he didn't appreciate our presence by creating a large wake and swirl that caught my son's attention in a very big way.

We continued along the east side of the lake in the shadows and caught some small crappie, female bluegill, a nice redear (not a trophy but nice) and a 15 inch bass.  I caught the redear on a John Deere and the bass on a leaf fly.  Apparently my leaf flies also look like minnows.  Good to know.

This will not be the last time that I fish Watkins Mill State Park and would love to chase some redear again.  I know people that claim there are big bass in that lake and a friend of a friend claims that he thinks the Missouri state record bass might be in there.  Also, and this was confirmed by park employees, wipers have been introduced to the lake recently to control the shad population.  In 3-4 years, this lake could be turning out some nice wipers as a result.  Definitely something to keep an eye on and to store in your mind for future reference.