Thompson was going out last week with his brother Charles Thompson and friend Floyd Corely and I tagged along. They were just joking about the brothers thing. Charles and Floyd are just friends who attend the same church, although they both have gone by the nickname "Butch" since they were little kids.
The similarities did make conversation easy. "Nice fish, Butch!"
"Come on, Butch, it's about time for another hook-up."
"Butch is catching the fire out 'em! So, what's wrong with you, Butch?"
Leaving Chouteau Bend Marina, just east of the Chouteau exit off Highway 412 before you cross the Grand River bridge, we motored upstream to the low-water dam, which is a barrier to the migrating fish.
Water poured over the low-water dam like a man-made waterfall, but Thompson has seen times a person could motor a boat over the dam and seen the river outside its banks in April.
"When it's like that, you might as well forget it," he said.
This year people are fishing for whites from the bank below the dam and off the bank just north of the Highway 412 bridge. Fishing from Thompson's roomy pontoon boat gave us a distinct advantage.
"I'll try and area for 10 or 15 minutes and if they're not biting we move on," he said.
Our cloudy, cool morning found the fishing slow below the dam. We tried a few spots as Thompson instructed Butch and Butch to cast their 1/4-ounce jigs tipped with 2- and 3-inch Mister Twister Sassy Shads and Bobby Garland Stroll'Rs, at the foam line between fast and slow current and into pockets of slack water.
We moved downriver and our best luck seemed to come with holes in the clouds that allowed the sunshine through.
Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra/article.aspx?subjectid=358&articleid=20110403_29_B10_CUTLIN565255
