Bushwhacker Fishing Memories

Here is a nice story about the first day that Bushwhacker Lake was opened for fishing shared by Gary Bell of Pittsburg, Kansas:

Lee Schafer, my brother Tim Bell and I were the first ones to put a boat on Bushwacker the day it opened for fishing. Although the offical opening time was not until 6:00 or 6:30, cannot remember now, there were so many boats waiting by 4:00 in the morning that they started letting them launch at 5:00. There must have been at least 75 boats there that opening day. It was quite a sight. We had arrived at midnight the night before so we could be at the front of the line.

We must have caught over 200 bass that day in about 6 hours. Basically every cast we caught a fish the first 2 or three hours. On my first cast I caught one that weighed in at 5 1/2 pounds. Before we quit we caught at least 8 fish that size up to 6 1/2 pounds. We spent the rest of the day fishing for channel cat. Since I had grown up there and had hunted and fished all over that area, I knew where the old creek channel was in the lake, so we set up there and we all baited three poles. At times we all would have at least two fish on at a time and a few times we would fish on all three poles at the same time. All the channel were exactly the same size, about 18-20" long. We had a blast fishing that day. A lot of fish were taken out of the lake that day even though the conservation department was only letting a limited number go out. We threw all of ours back. I was told by people who were there the second day, that the fishing was terrible. Some did not catch anything at all. I think that even with just a very limited number being taken out by each fisherman, there were so many people there, it was more than the lake could handle.

Talking to the agents on site, they thought that the lake was fished so hard by so many boats that first day, it threw the fish into shock for awhile.

Thought you might be interested to know about the first official day of fishing at Bushwacker. I have been back several times since then, with not even close to the kind of day we had that first day.

Go Back to Lake Construction.

Go Back to The Bushwhacker Homepage.