Story - White Bass Roundup

1 in 20 fishing trips are great. I figure if you fish a lot those 19 unsuccessful trips go by quicker. This was one of those trips. It has been a while ago so my recollection might not be 100%.

The water was high and muddy. The whites were coming back out of the river from spawning. Daniel and I decided to go fishing on the nitro, so we went to a flat off the main channel and the whites were already surfacing. Visibility was only about 1/2". We started throwing Little George's and were getting hits almost every time. We called Nate to bring us an ice chest since the livewell was getting full.  We went to shore, picked him up, and headed back to the same spot. The three of us caught fish constantly for about an hour and eventually filled up both sides of the livewell and the cooler. We caught some more and threw them back, but eventually made the call to go ahead and leave so we wouldn't be up all night cleaning fish. After cleaning fish until after midnight I unfortunately packed them in gallon bags. This is great for large fish fry's, but cooking for 8 or less we had too many leftovers.

The theory was that the white bass were off the flat rounding up shad and chasing them up to the shallower hump so that the shad would have less water to escape in. I have heard some people say that the big white bass are on the bottom. They let the younger fish do all the work injuring baitfish and just cruise the bottom behind the school cleaning up on an easier catch.

Spoons and Little George's on 6 or 8 lb test are my favorite for schooling white bass. When they surface you need to be able to cast a long way to hit the school. They also allow you to control the depth easier. Plastic jigs take a while to sink down and don't cast quite as far.

The tandem rig uses a spoon or Little George on the end of your line with a dropper loop a couple feet above it. The dropper loop allows a little jig to swim a couple inches past the main line and doubles your odds of hooking up.

Another rig to try if the fish are feeding on smaller bait is to use a crappie jig under a slip bobber.

Never grab a fishing rod past the reel. When landing one of the fish, Nate grabbed the rod about a foot from the end and snapped the tip off.

I think the total count was over 150.