A Watched Pot Never Boils...But West Point Does

Have you ever heard the stories about guys fishing on the river when all of the sudden fish start jumping in the boat? If you are anything like me you probably thought to yourself this could never happen to you and it was a fluke of nature. Well I have news for you...you're probably right. However with a little timing, some planning, and a lot of luck you very well could end up in the middle of a school of fish begging to be caught.

Several years ago I went camping on West Point Lake with my dad and uncle Richard. Dad had heard that the Hybrid were schooling at the surface so we took some time off and headed to the lake. If you are unfamiliar with Hybrid, allow me to educate you a bit.

The Hybrid Striped Bass is a mix between the Striped Bass (Morone saxatilis) and the White Bass (M. Chrysops). This usually happens when the eggs from the Striped Bass are fertilized by the sperm of the White Bass and does not normally occur naturally. Hybrid are primarily raised on farms and the stocked in lakes and rivers. You can tell the difference by noting that the stripes on a Hybrid are broken and not perfectly lateral along the body. 

Hybrid Bass are known for being extremely aggressive in their feeding habits and that makes them a sought after species in the fishing world. They will school together, often by the thousand, and round up shad below the surface. Once the bait fish have congregated to their liking, the Hybrid will then push the shad upward to the surface with the timing and precision of a Navy Seal Team, working together as a unit to complete the mission. Once the shad are at the surface, a feeding frenzy will break out as the Hybrid rapidly feed on the shad on the surface of the water. This "breaking" is quite spectacular and resemble boiling water in areas as big as a football field.

This is not as rare as you might think, but it requires being in the right place at the right time. The best way to catch an experience like this is to monitor the reports and make some calls to the local marinas and guide services to see when it's happening. When you get word that the Hybrid are boiling drop what you are doing, grab the roads, and get on the water. That is exactly what happened to us that weekend. 

Our first day out on the water we headed to the nearby dam, built by the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1965, where we heard of a lot of action going on. We started watching the depth finder looking for pods of fish and began seeing massive forms right away. The presence of several other boats in the vicinity confirmed that we were right where we needed to be. We tied on large Rebel Pop-R's, clear and blue with rattling beads in the tail, and waited. It wasn't long before the action started and in an instant fish were breaking all around the boat with so much veracity it looked as though you had poured water on a hot skillet covered in bacon grease. We cast out and after only one or two pops of the lure, all three of us were hit with the hardest fighting fish in the lake. 

The combination of one of the hardest fighting fresh water fish around and medium weight tackle made it felt as though you were fighting a Marlin off the coast of the Bahamas using a fly rod! We constantly called out to each other to get the net, but were only met with "I can't I have a fish on!" Looking across the water you could see the other boats dealing with same issues as big fish ran people all over the decks and back and forth across each other. Drag was being pulled so fast at times that it sounded like someone riding a zip line across the bow of the boat. The real trouble was when you did manage to get to use the net, not only did you have to man the net with one hand while fighting the fish with the other, but once you netted the fish he would fight so vigorously that the hooks would get tangled in the netting causing you to spend time untangling it before passing it off to the next guy. This would last for several minutes until the shad would become so scattered that the Hybrid would fall back to depths and begin the round up process all over again. 

The best part of the entire ordeal was that every fish we caught was over 5 pounds and some reaching on up to 7 or 8. In less than an hour we had boated all 3 limits of big fish and were headed back to the campsite to unload. We repeated this scenario all weekend with only minor hold overs between frenzies and "schooling parties" lasting as long as several hours. I remember watching my dad standing in the water with a fillet knife for hours at dusk cutting the meat off and chucking the carcasses out into the water. 

Hybrid Bass have a very firm, flaky white meat that is outstanding in the world of fish fillets. The meat is so good that many restaurants will sell a menu item titled "Striped Bass", but what you are actually eating is farm raised Hybrid. We took home what seemed like 100 pounds of fish fillets that weekend and were able to spread that catch out over several months with fish fries. 

This trip holds a high standing in my list of "Greatest Childhood Memories" and the story will be told to my kids and their kids as the time West Point boiled. I hope one day to be able to take my daughter to the lake when she is old enough to hold a rod and put her on a huge school of Hybrid. If that doesn't make a fishing maniac out of you...nothing will.