Yankton

Had a small club bass tournament at Yankton last weekend. Fished the river down as far as Sprotsman’s Saturday and Lake Yankton Sunday morning. Only 1 blank for the 10 of us with 5 limits caught for Both days. Big bass on the river was a 3.11 smallie and a 4pound largemouth on the lake. Plenty of action with all the short fish but the number of keepers was down from May when I was there. Still no place like it to get away from the crowd.

I was one of the few boats downriver (besides those in the tournament) on Saturday. I figured there was either a tournament going on, or you guys were pre-fishing for a tournament coming up.

While pulling some cranks in a spot in the middle of the river, I noticed a bass boat flying down river. The 2 guys in this boat were very courteous as they slowed down plenty far upstream and motored around us before taking off again downstream to the area they were going to fish.

Later on, after fishing the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon, my 5 year old was getting tired and a little hungry, so we decided to head back to the boatramp. There was a boat fishing an area right next to the channel that we were navigating and I slowed down to go around him. My son asked me why I slowed down, so I explained that the guys in the boat were fishing and we didn’t want to create a bunch of waves disturbing them and scaring the fish away. I told him it was the nice thing to do and if we did it, maybe the next guy would too.

Unfortunately, I no sooner got those words out of my mouth when another boater coming downstream went in between the boat we were avoiding and us. Then another passed us from behind in between the boat and us.

Not just one boat, but two went in between our boats in a timespan of approximately 10 seconds. Unbelievable! My little guy observed that the guy that passed us was “mean.”

Thanks for the report, Fluff.

JD, Teach ’em young.