Try different variations. I was in an area where no one was catching white bass, but you knew they were there. I got a backlash,I fixed it moved my line, wham a 2 pounder. I started letting my lure sink and caught my limit of large'in in a short time. One time I was slab'in,could not get a hit. I started hitting the bottom with the slab and picking it up and wham I wore'em out. Keep changing.

Dave, Just like fishing for largemouth, Keep
trying different presentations sooner or later
you will hook up with the right combination.
I myself learned several years ago but quit doing
it, but Have went back to it now because it works
well. I use a shad colored slab 1 1/2 ounce and
tie a small leadhead with a 1 1/2 inch curley tail grub about 16 inches above it.
This time of year they sometimes are chasing the smaller
baits and You may catch 90 percent of your fish
on the small jig.
But remember if one thing don't work try
something a little different. As for the slab
and grub you can jig it up and down or cast and
use a jerk and fall retrieve, it will generally
catch fish if they are there.

I would like to say thanks to all especially Jeff Schiller for an e-mail that was very informative.

Also I usually fish alone or with one of my daughters so if anyone wants to join me let me know. I try to get out on Sunday am & sometimes on Saturday depending on work.

dave, Hubbard has a bad habit of fishing going south in late summer. It can be tough. Just keep trying the thing that people advise on. Sometimes I use 5-6 differnt presentations in a day to figure out what they like. Most of the time it is all in presentation and size of lure.I have been fishing for a while and just like everybody else I had to learn by trial and error. god luck.

If you can't get those suspended fish to hit slabs or tail spinners try trolling the hellpet rig through them..I have been doing that with pretty good results.. You get to cover a lot of water that way and once you locate some fish you can try other things...I changed from LMB to fishing for whites/hybrid and crappie.. Have to relearn a few things but you will catch on quick....Good luck

Does anyone have a pic of a hellpet? I've done a search & about all I can conclude is it's a real deep diver?

daveblank, send me your address and I will send you some lures to catch sandbass with. bonitastaples@hotmail.com

here ya go dave check it out

http://www.rdlwebs.com/texasfishingmagazine/august2004equipmentarticleshellpet.htm

That's pretty differtnt looking. I'll heep this one in mind.

Just think back before TFF. You could fish for a year and only get half of the information IN THIS POST ALONE.
I just want to say thanks again to all of the great people on TFF!

Dave, I'm new at fishing and have found this fourm great for information. I struck out the first 3 times on Hubbard and almost gave up but I usually catch something when I go out now. I am still learning. I was out there Sunday morning too and was going to try out the Hell/Pet thing but actually returned the hellbender and got a jet diver because It sounded like people were having better luck with it when I did a search on it. I bought the 20' diver and my friend bought the 10' diver. I bought one #13 silver pet spoon but they were out of the silver when my friend went to get his. We started trolling around 7am and didn't have any luck. Somehow our divers got switched and my friend ended up with the 20' and I had the 10' He also was using a spoon since they were out of the silver pet spoons. We guessed the gold pet spoons were not as good since they had plenty of those. Anybody have good luck with gold ones? We also tried minnows when we weren't trolling with no luck. My friend had to be back around noon so we started heading back to the ramp and saw alot of fish on the graph and tried minnows again. No luck. We started trolling in that area to see if that would work. By that time the hook fell off my pet spoon so I used a chartruse slab on the jet diver and caught a good size Sandy. Then my friend took the spoon off his jet diver and put on a rubber shad with a lead head. He caught a cat pretty quick then two keeper sandies soon after. I think the key was trolling in an area where the graph looked good and at 20'. Since I am new at this anybody have any comments on this logic? We had to leave after that but I bet we could have kept catching more I we kept at it.

I wouldn't mind joining you sometime or you could join my friend and I.

I'm pretty new at this kind of fishing as well. I do not fish Hubbard, usually Tawakoni. I can't tell you how many times I've gone out and marked fish on my electronics but could not catch anything. I've thrown everything in my box and nothing worked. Try these http://www.basspro.com/servlet/catalog.T...rTarget=browse.

Some days are just tough - I have'nt been in about 3 weeks because the fishing has been so tough. Things should turn around in a few weeks and get much better but we really need some rain - it is really dangerous on the lake right now.

I have learned take the good with the bad. You will get to where you can do no wrong for a long while, then when you take some friends or family with you , you cant do nothing right,lol. Looks like you have lots of good tips and suggestions. I like to troll, topwater, slab, anyway possible to get them. But like any kind of fishing there is a time and place for them all. Heading into the fall I would keep a good eye out for boat shows. As the slabs will come in pretty handy really soon. I would suggest having a few humdingers, couple different sizes and colors, these baits do work well. I am a slab guy but I can also give credit to a good bait,Leroy makes a good one. Then I would have a few different slabs maybe some 3/4oz, 1oz, and up to a 1.5oz. Char/White, Silver, or white. You can find a variety of different ones on this forum. Or you can go with any of the ones you can get at Walmart or Academy. The main thing with this type of fishing is confidence in the bait. If your confident in it, you will try that much harder which at times is all the difference you need. Like slabnshad & JV mentioned try different presentations, it can make a good day out of a bad day in just 30 minutes of hitting the right pattern at the right spot. Dont get locked onto one spot for to long. If it isnt working keep moving. I have about 8 spots I like to try on my home lake. 3 of them work great most of the time. But if I pull up on it and it doesnt work I move on to the next. Best way to learn the good spots is watch the boats that are catching the fish. I followed a local guide around for a few trips, I never imposed on him and definatly kept my distance, even visited with him while we were both leaving. But by checking out the spots he was fishing I learned part of what I needed to know. Then it was just learning presentation. Come on fall it is about to get really good!!!

Dave just follow fattys' five rules of fishing.Any surfacing fish will hit just about anything you throw at them. Bigger ones are usually underneath the schools so just throw something heavier with a faster sink rate to bypass the schoolies. You probably have several things in your box that would work, spoons lipless cranks, almost any rattle trap.Now is when you want to look for structure and remember were it is for the fall pattern. Good luck and have fun