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Fishing Stories from Ned Kehde |
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Submitted by Ned Kehde - June 6, 2000 Several participants arrived earlier in the week and commenced scouting the disposition and whereabouts of the channel cats. The team of John Thompson of Ottawa and Sid Gonce of Lawrence started fishing on June 1 and battled a hot, harsh wind that angled out of the south. And despite the wind, they caught channel cats aplenty by employing congealed chicken blood in about two to three feet of water on rocky shorelines that were littered with logs and brush. According to Thompson, these cats were either spawning or about to spawn. The best way to entice them, Thompson said, was to use a bobber, placing it on the line so that the blood would float several inches off the bottom and allowing it to drift slowly over the cats' spawning site. On June 2, the wind switched from the south to the north and ushered in a rainy cold front. On this day Thompson and Gonce fished a variety of lairs, using blood and filets of gizzard shad. They continued to catch fish at the spawning locales, and they also caught some in patches of flooded timber in four and five feet of water along the edge of the submerged Wakarusa River channel. Gonce figured that once the day of the tournament arrived that they could easily catch 30 pounds of channel cats. Thompson's son, Mark, also fished on June 2. Mark Thompson and his partner, John Jamison of Spring Hill, won the WWC tournament at Mark Twain Lake, Missouri, on May 20 by catching 58 pound of channel cats, and they are in the lead for the anglers-of-the-year laurels. As his father and Gonce discovered, Mark Thompson found the fishing to be rather easy. He even tangled with a 20-pounder on a spawning bank, which he enticed by floating a bobber and shad filet across the 20-pounder's spawning bed. June 3, however, was a different day: cool, dry and bright. It was cool enough that Mark Thompson donned a long-sleeved chamois-cloth shirt all day. In the parlance of angling, these are called "bluebird days." They follow the passage of a cold front, and the fishing for some unknown reason turns sour. For the tournament anglers the fishing turned so sorry that the catfish along the rocky spawning sites either disappeared or they were so sullen that not even the most adept angler could entice one to bite. Therefore the two Thompson teams spent June 3 searching for new venues. By day's end they found two environs where some cats could be caught. One spot was in some shallow flooded timber along a series of bends in the Wakarusa River channel, where they anchored and fished with blood bait on a No. 2 hook. The other locale was on a couple of mud flats in five to 10 feet of water; here they drifted, using filets of shad on a No. 2 and a No. 4 split shot. On the day of the tournament, the teams of John Thompson and Gonce and Mark Thompson and Jamison spent the morning hours probing the flooded timber and the afternoon drifting the mud flats, using blood and shad at both areas. Jamison called the fishing excruciating. When the fish bit, they did it reluctantly; so they where difficult to hook. Only 96 fish were caught, and 12 of the 27 teams failed to catch a fish. But Mark Thompson and Jamison found a way to hook the cats, and they handily won the tournament by catching 10 channel cats that weighed 29.8 pounds. They also caught the biggest fish, which weighed 8.6 pounds. John Thompson and Gonce finished in second place with a catch of 17.8 pounds. |
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