What's the best presentation this time of year. I found some sandbass the other day in 15-20 of water near a rocky bay. I'll try to post the screen shot later. I could not catch them with a slab or get a bite. Maybe they where not sandbass. Anyways any help is appreciated.

Here is the screen shot. Do you scaly fisherman think these are sandbass? How would you have fished them?


Thank you for any input

I'd be curious to see a screen shot. I've been finding lots of smaller catfish mixed in the areas I've been finding white bass and sometimes telling them apart can take some practice and may not be super obvious.

Smaller catfish have a very rounded narrow arc similar to an individual white bass (vs a decent to large catfish will be flatter arc with most the hardness on one side. One of the key differences is their behavior. One key difference is that white bass usually school very tightly and appear more as clouds on the bottom. Catfish are loosely related and not cloudy. You can usually sit there and count each fish. Their school mates usually are loosely related and suspended throughout the water column as well.

As far as presentation, a good vertical presentation is probably the way to go. You can try catching them "smoking the reel" by letting a slab go to the bottom of the lake and then reeling as fast as you can straight up. If they don't respond to that tactic, let the slab go to the bottom, reel up the slack till your rod tip is almost touching the water, then slowly and steadily raise the rod tip up as high as you can in within five the six seconds. I do both these tactics under my transducer with chart speed at MAX. This allows me to see the fish and their reaction to my presentation.

Hope that helps some!

I don't utilize SI very much but those fish are very loosely related and I'd bet catfish!

I'll post a few down scans and see what you think. I appreciate your input. I'm still learning.

I have my color line on 72% and sensitivity to -4.

I would like to see a tighter group of fish on the screen. This time of year dead sticking starts, just waiting for the water temp to cool off just a little more.

I'd say smaller catfish until proven otherwise. Youll notice how loosely related they are to each other in the screen shots. I see stuff like that and much more numerous in several areas of my lake right now. If you keep driving around you may find some whites nearby. I plan on throwing more YouTube videos just showing screen shots of whites vs smaller catfish! I've had lots of bad trips until I started learning the differences

It never hurts to throw a slab out or cast and retrieve a search bait just in case they may be hybrids or white around until you learn the lake and your sonar. I'm still learning tricks on hybrid presentation on sonar but why I mention that is because they are loosely related and a few of them are a little bolder and bigger appearing yet still very rounded vs becoming flatter arcs like bigger catfish.

RespectTheFIsh I appreciate your input. I'll keep looking and learning. I do already subscribe to your channel. Very educational.

We probably would not have fished those and looked for a better screen shot.

Thanks for that! Let me know about any ideas that would be helpful to you or others. I love focusing on sonar because it is a game changer once you understand what you are looking at and looking for. I'm NO expert at all and only been using sonar seriously for last two to three years so I'm just now starting to get a grasp at what to look for. Love sharing helpful info that I wish were shared with me sooner lol

this usually will do it MOST OF THE TIME not always