Busch Wildlife

Hey everyone!  First I want to thank everybody that has stopped by my little blog.  It really means a lot to me that you have taken the time to give my blog a look.  This blog started as a whim that I really never thought anyone would look at.  As of October 2^nd something happened that I really didn’t expect I crossed the 100 views mark.  I know it’s not a lot but I want to thank each and every one of you.  So now with saying that I know that it has been a little over a week since my last post.  You will notice that I will be posting 2 this week to make up for it.  I had a bad chest cold all last week and couldn’t put two words together to save my life.  I am feeling a little better now so here we go. 

               

This morning I went to Busch Wildlife Conservation Area. it is a pretty big area with about 6-7000 acres of protected wildlife area.  It has 550 acres  of lakes that are stocked with trout, catfish, muskellunge and bass.  Also there are smaller species like bluegill and crappie.  All of the lakes are numbered and don’t have names other than the number.  There is a few things I guess you should tell you about this conservation area.   According to Wikipedia “During the 1940s portions of the area were used by the Weldon Spring Ordnance Works and the Department of the Army for the production of TNT and DNT. There are 100 old bunkers formerly used for the storage of TNT still in the area. The Atomic Energy Commission used the area from 1958 through 1967 for disposal of rubble contaminated by uranium and radium. In 1947 Alice Busch, the wife of August Anheuser Busch, Sr., donated $70,000 towards the cost of purchasing the area to use for conservation purposes as a memorial to her late husband.”  This area was decontaminated back in the 50s or 60s and  is now protected to ensure the wildlife, water quality and public health. 

Larry and I deceided we were going to go to Lake 35 before we got off work.   When you talk to people that fish at Busch they will always tell you the same thing “Go to Lake 33 or 35 there is some big bass.” Larry and I left work and headed for the lake. I got there a few minutes before Larry.  I park and walk down to the water.  A lot of the lakes at Busch wildlife have boats you can rent. So on my way in to the conservation area that is what I did.  I unlocked one of the boats and put my stuff in the boat.  These boats are little 10 foot Lowes aluminum john boats. Nice little boats no motors or anything so paddling is what we are going to have to do.  Now Larry and I both have access to a trolling motor which are allowed on these lakes, but when you decided at around 1am in the morning you can’t always get all the stuff you would like.  That’s okay though we knew we were going to have fun anyway.  Larry arrives and we hit the water. 

Say Hi Larry!

                As we hit the water we are giddy like two little kids at the candy store.  We paddle out and not knowing this lake we didn’t know where to go.  So we followed a few of the good old basics.  Look for rip-rap, downed trees, rock ledges and coves. We saw some downed trees and we started heading that way.  We pick a good spot and let the wind push us down and around these trees.  We fish there trying catch something and nothing.  We decided since we are normally bank anglers and we both do pretty well.  We were going to fish down the banks.   To stick with our strength.  As we start fishing the bank we are drifting perfectly parallel with the bank and we are fishing every thing we can. I am using 3 different lures.  I am using a Booyah buzzbait, Strike King Black and red spinnerbait and of course my red shad Culprit worms.  Larry is using a buzzbait and a worm (not exactly sure what kinds.)

                I throw my buzzbait out and it happens to go a little far and hit the bank.  As I start to reel it in it gets hung up on some thick weeds.  I am fighting it trying to get free and nothing is working.  Larry casts one more time before we go and get my buzzbait back.  As he is reeling it in this bass comes up and just attacks the hell out of his buzzbait.  Unfortunately, that bass missed the hook and only grabbed a hold of the blade and he didn’t get to bring him in.  He reels in his lure and we go and get my buzzbait.    I quickly get it back and we start fishing all the rip-rap around.  We start drifting down and I see some tall grass sticking out of the water.  I start casting my worm.  In this lake there is a fair share of vegetation underwater.  As I am reeling in I think that I got caught up in some of the vegetation and I start trying to shake the vegetation off.  It wasn’t working, my line never goes left or right and my pole never really bends like fish has hit my worm.  I start reeling faster to clean the hook off.  As my worm gets about 8 feet from the boat a bass crests the top of the water that’s when I realize that what I though was vegetation was a bass.  I quickly just lift the rod and the bass comes right out of water and I announce I have a fish.  It was a little 1 pound bass.  It didn’t attack this worm hard at all.  With the weather getting colder I have noticed that when the fish are biting the lure they are being much more timid and light on the lure. Much less then they have been the last few months.  There “attack” has pretty much disappeared and been replaced with a “tap” making it much more interesting. Requiring more focus on what is going on in your hand.

The only one that made it to the boat all day

                We continue to fish and I keep on with that worm.  I am using what I call a double pop as I am walking that texas rig worm in.  The double pop is on small jerk of the rod followed by a bigger jerk of the rod.  As I said before the weather is getting colder here so this time of the year it’s not really a jerk more of slow upward motion instead of the jerk.  I just finish the second “jerk” and my pole starts to bend and I set the hook.  Again this was not an attacking kind of bite. It was just like all of the other ones lately a very soft bite.  As I set the hook somehow the line wrapped around the end of the pole.  I realize this as I am reeling and the tension in my reel gets tighter and tighter to the point where I can’t reel it any more without fear of breaking the line or worse.  I dip the end of the rod down and try and get the line unwrapped from the rod.  I am doing everything I can to keep tension on the line.  As I bring the rod back up the bass jumps clean out of the water and I get a good look at what I’m reeling in.  It is what looks like a nice 2-2.5 pound bass with a nice light coloring.  He was absolutely beautiful.  As he enters the water again I am reeling hard and that is when I realize that there is no more tension on my line at all and that I lost him completely.

                We continue on for another half an hour to hour more and have no more bites and no more catches.  Than all of a sudden the sun went away and the temperature dropped at least 5 degrees in the matter of minutes.  With the chance of rain in the forecast we decide this might be a good time to start heading back and head home.  All in all even though we only got one to the boat and he wasn’t a big one a bad day fishing is still better than a day at work!   Until next time guys.

I hope everyone has enjoyed.  As a friendly reminder while out fishing remember the old saying "leave no trace".  If you make a mess or have trash please take it with you.  The environment will thank you.  Maybe even reward you with a new personal best catch!!  Have a great day and FISH ON!!!!!