This is a cut-and-paste of my article which originally appeared in the Killeen Daily Herald on June 11, 2023..

Contending with Summertime's "Popcorn" White Bass

Even those anglers who may not be all that observant likely cannot help but notice the appearance of “popcorn” white bass on Belton Lake.

By popcorn, I mean the behavior some schools of white bass exhibit when they drive schools of shad, both small, young-of-the-year shad, as well as adult shad, to the lake’s surface and feed on them there for just seconds at a time before disappearing once again, sometimes not to be seen again for long whiles.

These fish can be frustrating to chase and catch due to the limited amount of time they allow anglers to respond once they give away their position by making such a commotion on the lake’s surface.

Some days, as was the case on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, when calm, bright conditions really put the fish off, such popcorn-style feeding may be the only game in town.

These popcorn scenarios will not persist all summer. This focus on feeding on these small, slow baitfish will end as those shad which were spawned last (during the week prior to Memorial Day) finally grow out and become larger, faster, and more capable of evading capture. This typically begins around Fathers’ Day, and by the week following Independence Day, the popcorn activity is dwindling, only to be replaced by more sustained surface activity focused on larger shad which are much easier to imitate with artificial lures.



PHOTO CAPTION: The large diameter of this well-filled Pflueger Arbor spinning reel, combined with light, braided line and a long spinning rod help to maximize casting distance when using light lures like the MAL Mini (shown) while attempting to imitate young-of-the-year shad which currently dominate the white basses’ diet.




After over three decades of seeing and chasing these fish, I have come away with some suggestions for approaching these challenging fish as we work through the next few weeks.

BUDDY SYSTEM: Because these popcorn white bass typically stay on the surface briefly (literally, for under a minute or so), consider taking turns with your fishing partner, having one angler drive the boat and the other be prepared, rod in hand, bail open and ready to cast, in order to get off at least one good cast while the school of fish is in range.

If the fish are popping up routinely enough, you can use teamwork like this to put together a decent catch. If you go this route, do not drive so fast you create a wake, rather, going just a bit faster than your trolling motor could otherwise propel you is sufficient. Throwing a wake will cause more disturbance than the fish will stand for and can drive them away from the surface for good.

Driving with your trolling motor down and keeping your boat speed under 6 mph or so will allow you to cut your outboard and close the final distance with the electric trolling motor for stealth’s sake.

SPOOL FULL, LINE LIGHT: Casting light lures intended to imitate the roughly 1 ¼ -inch-long immature shad these popcorn white bass are feeding on is difficult. This job can be made easier by using a rod and reel selected just for this task. I use an 8-foot St. Croix spinning rod (PFS80LMF2) matched with a Pflueger 7435 Arbor reel loaded right to the spool’s lip with 10-pound test Sufix 832 Advanced Superline.

By filling the spool completely, the amount of friction the line encounters while riding over the spool’s lip is much reduced versus the amount of friction the line would encounter were the spool underfilled.

Long rods and well-filled spinning reels will help launch light lures, thus allowing an angler to cast sooner and reach further, all before the school of fish disappears.

STICK AROUND: Once a school of fish shows itself and then disappears, hanging around a few minutes just looking and listening for additional, nearby action can help determine whether there is an abundance of fish in the area or whether the first school you sighted in a given area was the sole school in that area.

OBSERVE BAIT SIZE, ADJUST LURE SIZE: As you watch white bass driving bait to the surface, try to look closely at the size of the shad they are feeding on. If there are adult shad present, you can get away with a standard presentation. My lure choice in this instance is an MAL Heavy with either a chartreuse tail or a white tail.

If, however, you see white bass feeding but cannot see the fish they are chasing, it is likely that they are chasing young-of-the-year shad. In this case, a lure the size of an adult shad will likely be ignored. For just such occasions, I developed a new lure, the MAL Mini. Of the 435 fish my clients landed this week (which included two tough days on Tuesday and Wednesday), two-thirds of these fish were taken on this small lure imitating immature shad.

COUNT LURES DOWN TO THE FISH: Once fish disappear from the surface, they will still be nearby at least for a short time. Instead of casting and immediately retrieving, as would be appropriate if the fish were visible and on the surface, allow your lure to fall to a four-count or a six-count to descend to the depth of the fish. Forward-looking sonar like Garmin LiveScope used in forward mode and panned left and right can help identify which way fish have gone and how deep down they are.

GO EARLY: All members of the temperate bass family, which include white bass, striped bass, yellow bass, white perch, and all of their hybrids, have a tendency to feed most heavily under low-light conditions. By being on the water and searching for fish 10-15 minutes prior to sunrise and for the 70 minutes that follow, anglers stand a better chance of encountering fish staying up near the surface for longer periods of time than after the sun has risen and brightened the sky.

Days which have wind and cloud cover (which serve to reduce the amount of light penetrating the water’s surface) also make encountering surface feeding fish more likely.

Even when you put all of these considerations together well, a morning spent in pursuit of popcorn white bass will still likely fall short of the tally you might expect while jigging with a slab in the winter, smoking a bait up off the bottom in the spring or fall, or tossing a bait imitating an adult shad into a school of fish which stays up on the surface for long whiles in mid to late summer.

Perhaps the wisest suggestion then is to alter your expectations during what I believe is Central Texas’ toughest month of fishing.

Informative post. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge. It will account for more fish being caught.

Awesome post, thanks for sharing this information.

I can vouch for the Mal Mini. Been wearing them out with it the past two weeks.

T Bird, I've shown below the "inspiration" for the MAL Mini design. When the whites, hybrids, and/or full-blooded stripers get "locked on" to small bait, it is hard to get them interested in something else. Larger lures will still catch them, but not at the high rate that a juvenile shad imitator will.

Notice that although these are threadfin shad, the do NOT have yellow tails as they are not yet mature. This is why I only have this MAL Mini available in white and not chartreuse.


Glad you are enjoying success with these!