Sandusky River in Fremont OH gives up white bass to well

Jul 10, 2023

Experience is a great thing. It's that crutch you can lean on when you’re looking for answers. And if I could give anyone my best tip on how to catch more fish, be successful at hunting or even birding, it would be to get out there and put your time in.

Well, since I retired in 2019 from full-time work, I’ve been putting my time in, and my last three fishing trips have paid off handsomely because of it.

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Without a doubt, knowing when, where and what to use was the key.

I’ve always aspired for that day when everything comes together, when it's fish after fish, so many that you quit because you know it's more than you want to clean, or your arms ache from the battle, not because you got skunked. Maybe what I enjoyed the most about my last three trips, though, was that I put other people on fish. And, it all started with a trip to Fremont to fish the Sandusky River during the white bass run.

Possibly no type of fishing is more dependent on timing than the white bass run (or the walleye run), which happens every spring. If you want to mark your calendar now, put a star on Mother's Day, as that's the bull's-eye you’re aiming at. It's a pretty safe bet that you can find fish up and down the river on the second Sunday of May, but to really dial it in, join the Sandusky River White Bass Run Facebook group page, or contact Anglers Supplies in Fremont for river conditions and the latest updates on the bite. Ultimately, water conditions fuel the frenzy, and knowing the temperature and water clarity will make it worth the two-hour trip.

Of course, you have to go when you get the time, and I had a short window to fish Fremont when I took my neighbor, Bob Yurick, and his sister, Marie Morris. They had been there before without much luck, and I promised them a successful trip, and that's exactly what we got.

It was actually the Saturday before Mother's Day weekend, the only day that worked for the three of us. Fish were in the river, but a cold front and heavy rains five days earlier had the river up and muddy. However, the water level was falling and the clarity was improving, plus the day was supposed to be warm and sunny, so we headed to Fremont.

We put in at 8 a.m. at the state launch and had a pretty good idea that the bite was on as there was a line at the ramp and fishermen lining both sides of the river. Word was that the fish were biting between the town bridges, which was a little less than a mile downstream from where we put in. We decided to fish our way down to the bridges, and as we did, the more fishermen we were seeing. And while we didn't hook up on the way down, the closer we got to downtown, the more fish we were seeing caught.

Once under the first bridge, we could literally see 20 boats anchored in the river, several wading in the river, and hundreds of fishermen on the shore. We picked our spot, and it wasn't long before it was "fish on."

Yurick landed the first white bass, which ironically was one of the few males we caught all day, and then I hooked up, and soon after Morris had her first fish.

"We’re catching ‘em, Bobby," she said.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, was catching white bass. I’d hate to guess how many fish were in the system at that time, or how many fish anglers were keeping, but it was a lot. It wasn't uncommon for people to leave with stringers of 50 white bass.

We didn't keep that many, but we did fill up the cooler, and in fact quit after realizing we were over the amount of how many we wanted to clean. I actually gave Yurick and his sister all the fish, so I didn't feel bad about not helping clean them.

So, how do you catch spawning white bass? Everyone has their go-to method, but basically anything shiny catches their eye. White bass are sight feeders, so minnows under a bobber, jigs and twister tails or inline spinners will get them to bite. We were using white plastics, and the fact that the water depth between the bridges is 3-4 feet, depending on the conditions, it's easy to run your bait at a depth that triggers a bite.

Morris has always been a tight-line fisherwoman, soaking worms on the bottom, so she didn't feel comfortable casting and retrieving, but she did catch her share of fish. Yurick went for a bare hook and white twister tail with a lead weight clipped on his line, while I was fishing a 3-inch Freedom Baitz white paddle tail fished weedless on a worm hook, as I like to set the hook on my fish.

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If you want to "hook" someone on fishing, a carefully planned trip to Fremont in the spring will do it.

After Mother's Day, my wife, Jeannie, and I took our annual camping trip to Pymatuning State Park, and once again timing was the key for this northeast Ohio reservoir that straddles the Ohio and Pennsylvania border. While we didn't get into the smallmouth bass like we usually do (we did go a week earlier this year), we did find the largemouth bass, and oh did we.

Last year we stumbled upon a back bay on the north end of the 17,000-acre lake with lily pads, and we headed up there for an evening of fishing out of the tandem kayak. Fishing a black 5-inch Yum Dinger weedless, we caught 15 bass in two hours, with all of them at least 2 pounds. And Jeannie not only caught eight to my seven, she also hooked the biggest. And while we didn't have a scale, I feel it is safe to say it was pushing 5 pounds. Jeannie was all about big fish on this trip, as she also caught a 26-inch walleye and a pole-bending catfish.

The night that we were in that back bay, there were 19 other kayaks and boats in the area, plus two anglers wading and several fishing from shore. Jeannie and I were the only two bass fishing, though, as the others were fishing for crappie.

Jeannie and I had such a fun time fishing the lily pads for bass that, three days later, I went back to Pymatuning with my brother, Don, this time to fish out of my boat. There is a 20-hp limit on Pymatuning, so I couldn't run my 50-hp motor and instead had to use the trolling motor the whole time. We explored the lake during the day without much luck (although Don did catch a 20-inch smallmouth bass), but once we headed to that back bay, the bite was on.

In a little over two hours, we hooked into well over 25 bass and landed 18. Some got wrapped up in the pads and came off, some jumped and spit the hook. And had we not had to drive two hours back home, we would have stayed longer and it would have been even more fish caught.

Once again, all the fish came on the black Yum Dinger, my go-to largemouth bass bait. But in this case, timing was probably more important than bait selection.

It's so fun when you hit it just right!

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Outdoor correspondent Art Holden can be reached at [email protected].