The small white jig settled quietly in the clear water flowing out of Bull Creek a minor tributary of Lake Taneycomo. The year was 1969.

A guest of the local conservation agent, I was fishing Lake Taneycomo for the first time. As the state's new trout biologist, I was getting acquainted with Missouri's trout resource, We were doing more sightseeing than fishing; we certainly weren't fishing for white bass.

Suddenly my ultralight spinning rod bucked, and I set the hook. The fight was fast and furious, and because I was thinking trout, the 12-inch white bass surprised me.

The agent explained that although the lake didn't have a large white bass population because of the extremely cold water cascading out of Table Rock Dam, it still supported a few of these feisty fish.

Although small, that first fish caught in Missouri ignited my interest in this wonderful native fish -- an interest that 36 years later still burns hotly.

In some circles, white bass, like the late Rodney Dangerfield, don't get no respect, placing a distant fourth behind largemouth bass, crappie and catfish in popularity with Missouri anglers. Yet they inhabit most major streams and large lakes, provide ferocious bite and fight, especially in spring, and readily attack jigs and spinners. And they're really good eating. What more could you ask for?

While found in most Missouri streams and lakes, white bass do best in the state's southern clear-water lakes. Beginning in February and March, and continuing through April, they migrate out of the lakes' deep-water holding areas, used during summer and winter, to tributary streams where they stack up preparing to spawn near major riffles.

Unlike largemouth bass, crappie, and sunfish, which build nests and then guard the nests and the developing fry, white bass, yellow bass, and striped bass broadcast their eggs and sperm in moving water.

Once fertilized, eggs sink and tumble along the bottom, lodging in the gravel where they develop and hatch. Although white bass produce millions of eggs each year, probably less than 20 percent survive to hatch and grow to a catchable size.

Join me now as I highlight a few of the better lakes to find those catchable fish, suggest some tried-and-true methods for spring fishing and fishing later in the year, and provide my favorite white bass recipe.

WHERE TO FISH
Norfork Lake
A significant portion of Norfork Lake, located in southern Ozark County on the Arkansas border, actually rests in Arkansas, but the Missouri side may arguably be the best white-bass lake in the state. Management of this 22,000-acre U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lake is a joint project between Missouri and Arkansas fisheries biologists. Norfork's great white bass population and fishing is augmented by annual stockings of striped bass and hybrid bass (a hatchery cross between white bass and striped bass) from Arkansas hatcheries.

Like other White River lakes, Norfork is governed by a fishing regulation that reflects its status as a border water: An angler with a reciprocal fishing permit can fish both the Missouri and the Arkansas portions of the lake, which supports one of the best and most consistent white bass spawning runs.