Crappie fishing brings out passion

By BRENT FRAZEE
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
LAKE OZARK, Mo. -- As captain of the Larry Don excursion boat, Rick Bemis is accustomed to showing tourists the sights at Lake of the Ozarks.
But not often in the manner he did on a recent weekday.
After opening the window of the huge vessel that was docked near Bagnell Dam, Bemis talked a bit about how good the fishing was within casting range of the boat. Then he proceeded to show a visitor one of the lake's most familiar popular spring sights -- a big crappie.
"This isn't the way most people at Lake of the Ozarks fish," Bemis said with a laugh. "But hey, whatever works.
"There's a big brush pile out there, and this is about the only way you can get to it if you're not in a boat. When you hang out this window, you can reach it with a long cast.
"You have to let your jig sink. It's down in 17, 18 feet of water. But there are almost always crappies there."
This day was no exception.
Time and again, Bemis cast a yellow and white jig to the open water, patiently waited for it to sink and was rewarded with a big crappie. An hour later, his bucket was brimming with fish, and he was well on his way to a limit catch (15 per day).
"I've put a lot of brush in around this dock," Bemis said. "And the nice thing is, I've got it at all depths.
"At this time of the year, that's the key -- finding which depth they're at. When they're spawning, they'll usually be shallow. But a lot of times, they'll move back deeper when a cold front moves through.
"That's why it's nice having some deeper brush nearby. It will hold a lot of fish -- and usually some of the bigger females just waiting to come in."
A passion
Like many lake-area residents, Bemis has developed a passion for fishing for crappies at this time of the year. He can't wait until mid-April when the speckled fish start moving into the shallows en masse to spawn. That's when he knows that the main course for a fish fry can be caught virtually every time out.
But Bemis doesn't take the conventional route to those crappies. One spring morning might find him hanging out of the window of the big excursion boat, which is not in operation yet this spring and where access to the dock is limited. Another morning might find him in a canoe, working the stumps and brush in the Osage River several miles below Bagnell Dam.
"I like to fish in areas that don't get a lot of pressure," said Bemis, 43, who lives in Eldon, Mo. "Even though this Lake of the Ozarks area gets hit hard in the spring, there are still out-of-the-way places that don't get fished very much.
"Those are the places I look for."
Before the heavy rains hit and the water level shot up, Bemis found those places on the stretch of the Osage River below the town of Bagnell.
"In low water, a lot of stumps and brush are exposed," Bemis said. "We would just take a canoe, go downstream a ways and work a lot of those cuts, and we were catching all kinds of crappies."
That changed when the rains brought the river up and made the current too swift. But all Bemis had to do was shift his efforts to above Bagnell Dam, and he started catching fish again.
"This area has had great crappie fishing for as long as I can remember," he said. "I remember when I was growing up and I worked at a drive-in so I could earn money to buy fishing tackle.
"I went down to the Osage with our landlord's son, and we would catch stringers of crappies.
"One day, we had a bunch of them, and we kept putting them on the stringer. When we were done, we went to pull it up, and all we had were fish heads. A big old turtle was down there, eating them as fast as we were putting them on."
More than just crappies
Bemis fishes for more than just the crappies, though. He also is fascinated by the area's big catfish and the history behind fishing for them.
"When we were kids, we used to wade the creeks and catch the big catfish by hand," Bemis said with a laugh. "We weren't supposed to do that, but we didn't know any better at the time.
"Later, we'd fish the river a lot. I remember how our landlord would sit down on the river all day, fishing. And he'd catch some huge cats.
"The side of his barn was just covered with catfish heads he had nailed up there."
Bemis doesn't have to go far to get a reminder of the area's rich fishing history. In the Camp Bagnell Fish and Steakhouse where he works, old-time photos of fishermen hoisting huge fish hang from the walls. And framed articles of another era document a day when the little town of Bagnell was a thriving place.
Today, Bemis carries on that tradition. He is the third generation of a family that has operated an excursion boat at Lake of the Ozarks -- and the third generation that has chased fish at the giant reservoir each spring.
"I love living in this area," he said. "If you like to fish, there aren't many better places to live."