This is a very good post and following thread.
It is unassuming, generous, honest and informative.
It rises above bloated self importance and selfishness.
Outstanding!
I respectfully thank you Mark.

Mike

I've caught alot of little yellow bass. Im wondering if you can use them as bait for Hybrid. Mark. do you know?

Do Not use Yellow Bass as bait - they are considered a game fish by TPWD - and you will get a ticket using them -------

Trust me - I know that for sure ($175 ticket).

I will second Mark by stating that they ARE a game fish and cannot be used in any way to catch any other fish hybrid or otherwise.

and bluegill/sunfish/perch aren't considered a game fish. Such a shame to toss good tasting meat to a flathead.

What really gets me is the bass is considered a gamefish and is in the Sunfish family - go figure.

So let's again talk more about - How to catch fish,

How to find them, why are they there and where to expect them to be next?

Right now we have those bait fish in the shallows � with all the others following them in there � Blues � Big Striper/Hybrids and those glorious Big Bass (about another week or so) � so then what happens?

The shad move out and stop hitting the Banks � and of course all else follows them (then it�s top water season where ever you see them).

Always � always � follow the bait (Spring, Summer & Fall, and even so much more important during the winter in deeper waters � stay with them and all the others follow � always do). There are two things that drive all of life � SEX and FOOD.

So what�s the next phase � you will see small fish during May and June � in what I call � God knows why they are out there spots � in what I call no man�s land - deep water (40 to 50 feet) � but if you look under them � sometimes you will find GOLD MINES � Big Sriper/Hybrids � Stacked under those - down in 20 feet of water under those smalls (I think they eat the smalls after the latest smalls hatch and the young shad hatch).

Keep up this thread to help us all to be better fisherman and catching more and enjoy our great out doors � keeping what we need and release the rest,

Many times while fishing Texoma, with a little wind chop on the water, it was easy to spot "slicks". These are wads of bait just under the surface and the oil they are emiting floats to the top. I always had great success casting a big surface bait over and past the slick and working it thru the slick.

yes I can tell you that the topwater bite at least at Joe Pool has really picked up in the last week, and I don't know if this is because the shad are spawning close to the surface or just the classic pattern of being chased by game fish to the surface, and then the birds follow.

Hey Mark
How do you find the birds in the FOG? LOL Just ran across your thread here. Some great info I hope to put to use. For everyone else my wife and I fished with Mark today and it was GREAT as always. May have to buy another freezer soon.
Thanks
L and CJ

Mark, having reached my golden years (now 68) I'm also interested in passing on fishing knowledge to the younger generations. This is a good thread you've started. I'll try to add some of my learnings regarding fishing for white bass. I've been fishing for them for 43 years, and over that time I've learned 3 lakes well: Eagle Mountain, Livingston and Cedar Creek. I will try to keep it simple and will no doubt repeat some things you or others already covered. So, in my humble opinion:

1. The easiest way to catch white bass is to find them feeding on the surface. You can catch them with almost anything - spoons, slabs, spinners, soft plastics, crank-baits, etc. Cast it out and reel it in at or near the surface. It's fast, exciting and effective. This was my primary way to catch them the 1st ten years. We cruised the lake looking for birds circling/diving over he same area, or we looked for a group of boats. If neither were to be found, we looked for the actual surfacing fish. Calm weather was always at a premium because you could see the fish hitting from a long ways off. Of course, we bought the most powerful binoculars we could find and could see birds on the other side of the lake. In spite of all these efforts, some days you just could not find surfacing fish. In fact, on Livingston, most days you could not find surface schooling fish. Many days on Eagle Mountain - after 30 minutes of early morning top water action it was over. If you only know how to catch them this way, you look and look then give up and go home.

2. The best way to make sure you come home with a mess of fish is to learn how to find and catch fish on water bottom structure - points, humps, drop-offs, old roadbeds and old submerged bridges. I will cover my view of how to do this in a later post. For now, I want to make another point: Before taking on structure fishing for whites, you need to develop confidence in a bottom catching bait and technique. Why? Because if you think you have found fish on a structure, if you can't catch any and don't have confidence in your technique, you will question whether you actually found fish. You will question your depth finder and become frustrated and confused. But, if you know you can catch them if they are down there, then you don't lose confidence if you don't catch any in that spot - you just move on and look for them on another structure. So, how do you develop confidence in a bottom catching bait and technique? You develop it while you are fishing surfacing fish (as in 1 above). Instead of retrieving the bait at or near the surface, you let it go to the bottom and work it there. Actually, you are more apt to catch better fish down at the bottom anyway. Slabs, spoons, lead-head with soft plastics and inline spinners are the most popular baits for fishing the bottom. Try them and find one you can have confidence in. Once you have a technique you know you can catch them with, then you can take on structure fishing. In a later post I'll cover my favorite structures and how to locate them, and also cover my preferred baits and how to work them on structure.

I'm really loving this thread. I'm trying to absorb everything my two brain cells can handle . I'm glad it's written down so I can come back to refresh my memory. I appreciate you guys sharing this knowledge that would take many many years to learn on your own. Please feel free to share as much as you care to. Thanks so much.
BTW Dennis, I bought some of the Mepps inline spiner baits a couple months ago but can't remember what I did with them. Not sure if they're the right ones but I'm sure I'll be buying some more this summer when the slab bite stops or slows to a crawl. Please be good enough to give another description of your technique, bait, weights, and which mepps you use. Thanks

That's a real gem Dennis. As I am trying to re-aquaint myself with fishing, more often than not, I'll find fish on my electronics, but can't catch any. You are exactly right, I begin to doubt if I have really found fish.
Thanks for sharing this info. You too Mark.

POST #2 How do you find white bass on structure? Here are my recommendations:

1. You need reasonably good electronics and know how to use them. IMO a high resolution B/W depth finder is the minimum needed. Color and side view may speed the process up but are expensive. If you can afford them and feel it is worth the money, then get them. I don't use either - just high resolution B/W. To me, the cost is still too high for the side view. I may upgrade to color when I have to buy my next unit. Good electronics are important so you can distinguish baitfish from the fish you want to catch. Also, so you can zoom in on the water bottom and distinguish between trash and fish lying right on the bottom. You want it to show you what it sees rather than interpret it for you and put pictures of fish on the screen. After you see what a good bunch of fish look like (as when you are over them and catching them readily) you will remember what this looks like and that's what you will be looking for when you go searching other structures.
2. Get a good topo map of the lake and study it for points, humps, drop-offs, roadbeds, etc. A good structure is one where the depth is significantly shallower than water next to it. For instance, humps have deeper water all around them, points have deeper water on 3 sides of them, roadbeds have deeper water on both sides and drop-offs have deeper water on one side. There may be fish anywhere on these structures, but I find that the most likely place for them is at the edges just before it drops off into deeper water. This is particularly true if the point or hump is broad. Most of the productive structures I know of in the Texas lakes I fish are 10 to 18 ft deep with deeper (25+ feet) water next to it. Structures with 25 to 30 ft tops (with 40+ ft next to them) can also be productive if the water is clear enough. In stained water it gets dark fast as depth increases.
3. With map in hand get on the water and locate the structures you see on the map. Use landmarks and GPS points if you have a GPS and the map has some listed. I have been doing it for so long without GPS, I don't feel the need to use them myself. I have a handheld GPS but just don't use it. If you do use one, mark the structure as waypoint and label it so you can get back to it.
4. Favorite structures: I know 3 lakes pretty well. My home lake now is Cedar Creek and I've come to realize it is such a good white bass lake because it is loaded with structures. So far I have found 30 structures where I frequently catch white bass, and I find new ones each year. Some of my favorites among these are (you guessed it) Saint Annes Point, Key Ranch Drop-off, Dam Drop-off, Dam Ridge and southwest corner of Hump Across from Spillway Dam. Eagle Mountain Lake has a lot fewer good structures. I know of ten starting at Pelican Island and going south and east. My favorites are the south edges (drop-offs) of the large flat extending south from Pelican Island, the well known 27 ft hump that is about 100 yards out from the main dam about 100 yards east of its west end, the large tall point just to the east of this dam hump and a hump 24 ft deep not on the map out in the middle of open water between the Boat Club marina and the south end of the lake. At Livingston I counted about 20 structures I fish from the Hwy 190 bridge southward to about 1200 yards south of the Old Hwy 190 roadbed. My favorites are Old Hwy 190 submerged bridges (7 of them and each bridge has 3 structures - both ends and the middle), Submerged Kickapoo Bridge - both north and south sides of it, the point in front of old Frank's Marina, Old submerged Hwy 190 Roadbed where it reaches Trinity River on the east edge of river.

Of all these structures, my very favorite and most reliable are 4 of the submerged bridges on Old Hwy 190 roadbed: the one on the west side of the Trinity River channel, Hell's half Acre bridge, and 2 bridges near the west end of old 190. Submerged bridges, if at the right depth, are ideal structures for attracting white bass. The ones on Old 190 are 10 to 12 ft deep on the road surface with rails on each side 3 ft shallower. Depth under the bridges varies from 22 to 30 ft. Shad feed on the algae on the hard road surface and on the rails. This in turn attracts the white bass. Fish can hang out in the shade of the bridge, and then when they want a meal, they swim up to the roadbed or rail and catch a shad. We park our boat at either end of bridge or in the middle of it (of course after we find it using our electronics). We catch fish casting on top of bridge road surface, casting down the roadbed and to shoulders at ends of bridge and casting over and pulling bait across bridge rails (which you can do with an inline spinner but not a slab or spoon without getting hung up). I call this last one "rail fishing" and made a post describing it last year. How effective is this bridge fishing? I went to Livingston twice last year. The 1st trip I fished with my sister in mid July, and we went out from 7:30 to 11 AM and caught 110 on the bridges and came in. In early August I fished with long-time friend Randall Lovelace, and we fished the middle half of the day and caught 206 on the bridges. All these sandies were from 13 to 16 inches. All caught on Mepps spinners.

I'll cover my preferred baits (including Mepps) and fishing techniques on next post.

Awesome guys. Thanks.

On a side note one of the first upgrades I am going to add is the Navionics Platnium which has the topo maps in both 3d and 2d.

Great post right there!

You Bet � see birds (and then know what they are doing and telling you � You Have got Fish � all of them � Blues, White Bass, Striper/Hybrids and Big Black Bass). Lot�s of the time � those BIGS are not right in the middle of all that � but on the outsides of those during our next phase � the big�s will be on the outside of those schools � normally on the deeper side.

Those Slabs � for me Fish http://www.trollingnolanstackle.com/ specially the Mark Parker Specials http://www.trollingnolanstackle.com/casting.htm - Way over 90% are caught on those � I also love those Haymakers � for the Big Striper/Hybrids.

Learn to read the fish (and watch your Deep-Finders and see where they are � the Biggs). Learn to work those same baits (slabs) in the strike zone � exactly where they are � learn how many pulls to drop it right on there heads or learn (with the reels you use and their gear ratio how many to crank it up) � and/or learn all this by watching your deep finders � to see that bait and put that bait right in front of their nose).

Right now � GO BIG on your baits � to catch the Bigs � next phase it�s match the hatch � which is fixin to happen � Yep you can catch the Bigs on smaller baits too during this next phase.