Wiper Run

Friday, April 23, 2010 , , , 0 Comments



Well the Wiper have started to run on the face of Clinton Lake's dam. So far most have been small but within the past few days both myself and others have started to catch some larger ones. Wiper, also known as a hybrid Striped Bass, is a cross between a male Striped Bass and a female White Bass. Even though they are infertile, they still hold onto their genetic heritage and attempt to "spawn" on rock faces and around river inlets. What makes this exciting is for the rest of the year Wiper are suspended in large schools in open water making them difficult to find in great numbers and all but impossible to reach from the shoreline. The Kansas State Record is 22 lbs so they can get of substantial size around here and are more than able to put up a spectacular fight. To the right is one of the smaller ones and below are the size of the ones that are starting to hit now. Bigger fish remain I am sure of it. Also I apologize for the quality of these photo's, I took down my real camera earlier this week but of course my batteries were dead so I had to snag these shots on my phone.


On spinning equipment I have been catching them on Mepps #2 and #3 Agilia Spinners with a silver blade and either a white or natural fur bucktail. Also I have had great luck and less hookup's with the rocks using small silver spoons. I haven't tried for them on my fly rod yet but guys at Yager's are swearing by white, red, and yellow Clauser Minnows. My best is 6 in a few hours but some of the guys in the Fly Club claimed 12-15 Wednesday night with a max weight of 6 lbs.

And finally, though I found the Walleye spawn to not be as spectacular this year I as would have hopped there still remain Walleye on the face of Clinton Lake. Two to three inch plastic grubs in chartreuse and white on a 1/4 oz jig seem to be producing the best results. Your retrieve should be just fast enough to avoid the top of the rocks. Though I caught the Walleye pictured below on a Dardevle (spelling correct) midget silver spoon. 





Below: Clauser Flies to the Left and Mepps Spinners and Dardevle Spoon to the Right


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