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 IN THE MayThe May issue contains some turkey hunting stories, including one about the youth hunt, and how it can be highly successful without killing a turkey. There's also a number of fishing stories, including one about catching the white bass run just as it was getting good on Clearwater Lake. A story about that is repeated below. There's also a story about white bass on the St. Francis River - several were caught, but it was the smaller males. And a story about a challenge - catching carp on a fly rod. The continuing situation on Black River below Taum Sauk Lake and Johnson's Shut-Ins was the subject of several stories, including one on a float trip on Black. Fishing was good, but the river's depths could not be seen. There's also an editorial opposing a possible deal that would let Ameren-UE off the hook on cleaning up Black River in exchange for giving the state some other things. A new series by Jim Featherston begins. It is about the confession of Sam Hildebrand, a Civil War bushwacker from the eastern Ozarks. It tells Sam's story about how he came to declare his own war on the Federals an anyone he thought sided with them. There are three more episodes to go. A story about catching trout on Current River is featured, along with a story on finding arrowheads. And there's a story on fishing with live baits - the fun of gathering the bait in the first place. And where to find morels. Catching bass on Council Bluff Lake was a topic of one story. Our Indian heritage tells about how spring greens provided medical supplies for Indians of this area. And there is speculation that the next state record largemouth bass might come from Lake Girardeau. Straight news includes the seasons, sunrise/moonrise table, camp fee increases in the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, the reaction to a Bush Administration plan to sell off 21,000 acres of the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri, recipes, coming events, Conservation Commission actions. Two fishermen were surprised to find the St. Francis River high and muddy on morning, leading to a story that explores resources on the Internet that can be used to avoid such surprises. The "links" section of the web site are a good place to start. Being there when the white bass run begins By Bob ToddI’m the guy who gets out to hunt mushrooms the day AFTER others brought them in in five gallon buckets. My luck with timing for the best white bass fishing is about the same. But now and then even I win one. Dale Kipp and I had been skunked a week earlier, but this time we aimed for Black River above Clearwater Lake. Dale (below) took me about daybreak, and after some tentative casts and catches, we got into them. Now, you can catch white bass on the spawning area starting in late winter. But they’re the males, generally smaller. When the females arrive at the spawning site, it is like the mushrooms have bloomed overnight.  We found them on a drop-off out from a gravel bar, in an area that will be flooded when the lake comes up to summer level. It wasn’t a matter of catching one on every cast, but it was almost that good. Often, we both had fish on at the same time.About a third of them were females, big and plump with eggs. I’d replenished my white bass lure supplies since the previous week and started with a red-headed, yellow Roadrunner. I didn’t change. In fact, I loaned one to Dale when I seemed to be getting more hits. (It is always a proud moment when you can loan a guide a lure.) When we’d arrived at our fishing hole, there was another trailer on the boat ramp, but apparently they’d gone somewhere else. We had our spot to ourselves as we began. The sun was up, in fact, before another boat ventured up the river. Sun up was significant in more ways than one. Not only did it signal the arrival of another fisherman, it signaled the end of the fast fishing. Now we caught a white now and then, but also caught some decent crappie when we moved a little. We both had other things that needed doing that day and left the lake about 9. Dale had 10 in the live well and I had 12. Plus some crappie. A COUPLE DAYS LATER I took friend Roy Halbert from Cape Girardeau a couple days later. We went at dawn and arrived on the scene first. But before our wake had settled, five more boats had joined us. The word was out. Complicating things, another boat went past us, right to the drop-off where Dale and I had done so well, and pretty much parked there. Roy and I managed to catch a few, males, and wondered if the major body of whites had run even further up the river. Other boats seemed to catch an occasional white also. You could probably hang around most of the day and end up with a nice stringer. But Roy and I had a float further up on Black River planned for later. Clarity of the water? Fine for fishing. If it was discolored by the Taum Sauk Dam disaster, you couldn’t tell it, for carp and suckers were spawning, sending up clouds of mud in one section. Two dozen years ago, May, 1982
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Corps of Engineers tested the pump-back operation for generating electricity.
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