Lake Quivira 10/2/10

It's been a while since I've had time to sit down and write.  It's been even longer (11 years) since I've fished Lake Quivira.  Thanks to Raymond Bates, the president of the Lake Quivira Bassmasters, I'm sitting here at my computer killing two birds with one stone.

Tucked away in the woods of western Shawnee, KS is a little community called Lake Quivira.  There's a country club, a golf course, stables, small houses, and big houses.  Sitting in the middle is a 200-something acre lake with around 500 boat docks.  It's paradise...and with the Anglers In Action Championship on Lake of the Ozarks in my not-so-distant future I pegged it as a great place for me to get in some much needed dock-fishing practice.  When I was in high school I used to walk the shores of Lake Quivira skippin', flippin', and pitchin' a black and blue jig up under the docks.  So even though all of my friends were getting ready to start casting down at the Big Bass Bash, I was excited to get nostalgic.

I rolled through the gates and linked up with Raymond at his dock around 7am.  We'd never actually met in person...and we've been trying to get together and fish since March.  With the sun coming up quick we were getting anxious so after a couple quick introductions, we jumped into a small aluminum Triton that Raymond bought a couple years ago from Luke at Pro's Choice Marine.  For a small lake with little traffic this rig was perfect...25 horse Merc on the back, 24v Minn Kota up front, and quality electronics.  We motored out a little ways to check a ledge that was covered with brush.  The shad were there, the brush was there, but after chuckin' and winding DD22s for about 10 minutes or so we decided to move to one of the lake's subtle points.

Mr. Bates connected with a short fish after a cast or two on the first wind-blown point, and my first fish wasn't far behind his.  As the wind swept across the point creating current and moving bait into the pocket, it made for a natural ambush point and a perfect place to throw a spinnerbait.  We pounded the point and the shallow adjacent pocket, hauled some water and decided to move on to the next one.  The next point started off much the same, but gave me our first small keeper of the day on the blades.  As we were casting in between the docks, the lake's small wiper population started to bust up shad in open water behind us.  With the trolling motor on 100 we hauled over there.  I dropped a chartreuse-shad BTT Swim Jig into the water as I was getting ready to cast and felt my heart skip a beat and drop at the same time...a 6-7lb wiper swam up and pulled on my trailer without hooking up.  We'd ran the boat right on top of the moving school and after several minutes without seeing another ambush we knew we'd spooked them back down into the water column.

As the sun came up higher and after my spinnerbait reel's drag started to come apart, we decided to get up close and flip the shoreline grass.  I put a jig into hole after hole after hole and lost a couple pinchers off my trailer, but never got a solid bite.  Raymond start winging a Mann's 1- and stuck what may have been our second keeper, or at least that's what we called it.  The day thus far had pretty much sucked so if there's no measuring board in the boat 13" starts to look like 15", right?  We pushed up into the backwaters that feed the lake and while it was skinny, there was enough water for Raymond's boat and a few more shorts that wanted to bite.  We both had places to be so we turned back towards the dock and decided to call it a day.

All in all, I'd call the day a pretty big success.  It doesn't sound like I had a great day, but I went into the day telling myself that practice isn't all about what you catch.  Golfers hit balls for hours on the driving range when there's no gallery lining the tee box.  Baseball players take batting practice while a few star-struck kids sit in the stands.  Boxers hit a heavy bag every day they're in the gym.  Anglers cast and set hooks.  When a big fish gets on the line on game-day, I know that if I've been out there going through the motions I'll set the hook and get em' in the boat without blinking.  The more times you do something the more natural it feels, and when you're in a tournament the last thing you want to worry about is your technique when you should be focused on patterning fish.