Well I'm a bass fisherman but LOVE to chase schools of Sandies around when they are surfacing. If they arent surfacing I don't have a clue how to pinpoint them.... I mainly just fish Amon G Carter. Sunday evening I saw two schools of Sandies surface for about 30 seconds each but by the time I got to them they were back down.. I want to take my 7 year old god daughter out and get her to catching them.. You guys have any tips on how to pin point them? So we can jig for them or Troll?

What do y'all recommend??

Thanks a lot!
Brandon

Use your electronlcs to find slopes and humps. Sandbass relate to that type of structure.
Johnny

Brandon,
I'd recommend using a slab/casting spoon when they are not surfacing. Pick the slab up off the bottom, hold it at it's apex and keep a tight line or semi taut line as it drops. Most hits come on the fall. For surfacing fish, try a sassy shad type bait ( Rum Runner ) with some 3/4oz jigheads. Just throw them out and crank 'em in.
Tight Lines
Mitch "Rooster" Parker

Brandon, Usually when the fish have just gotten through with an explosion of top water they are still in the area so If you throw a slab out and let it hit bottom and burn it back to you they will strike. The later the summer gets the more they will hit the slab moving like that. Good Luck

I would recommend to try both open water and close to the banks.

Try to find a hump, or multiple humps with a depth anywhere from 25-17 feet. Use a chartreuse medium sized bomber slab for the sandies.

For the hybrids, find those humps, but stay in open water. Use a deep diver with a 3-4 foot extension with a chartreuse sassy shad and red, white, or chartreuse colored head.

Also try bottom trolling if there are no trees.

If you have downriggers, go to a depth of around 24-18 feet with just a sassy shad as I mentioned above.

Good luck and catch them all!

Thanks for all the help guys!! I'm going to go out in the morning and give it a shot in the wind.. I guess I'll just idle around and see what I can come up with. I have a couple places in mind. If I mark some suspended schools do I need to go ahead and drop the Spoons down to the bottom, or work them suspended?

If you see shad in huge numbers,sandies are underneath them.

Take a learning trip with a guide. They can teach you how to spot sandies on the bottom. Many times I have caught fish when I could not see a thing on the fish finder. Sometimes they hug the bottom so close it is impossible to see.

Here are some tips from previous posts:

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.

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.

Wow thanks Dennis! Gig'em!!!!

I watch a lot of anglers chasing sandies etc. by sight and then watch them make bad decisions on what to do next.

One of the most common mistakes is running up on the school after seeing them break the surface.

If you are out of range and move toward them with your trolling motor then stop 75-100 yards back and cast to them instead of running right up to where they were before you spooked the shad and they moved off.

If there are "little" ones breaking the surface then there are big ones that are below them.

BigDozer66

Thanks for all the help guys.. Went out this morning and started trolling around with a DD22 while I was watching my graph at a couple spots I had in mind. Caught a couple trolling here and there. Caught about 4 in one spot so tried dropping a jigging spoon to the bottom and it was fish on! Caught about 25 there before moving to another spot. .. Found another spot with a drop off where they were stacked.. Dropped the jigging spoon and fish on! Nothing after that.. Tried trolling and still nothing.. Trolled around the lake and looked at a couple different spots before returning to the fist spot where I caught them so well... Started catching them again..

My goal today was to try and find several spots I can try incase one isn't producing... Seems like that first spot was. But the other spot that I marked so many fish wasn't producing. I'm sure that's how it goes though.

I caught a couple trolling, a couple throwing the jigging spoon out and letting it sink to the bottom and retrieving it.. But 80% of them were jigging it off the
bottom.
can't wait for my god daughter to get out of school this afternoon and take her out... Not looking forward to cleaning all those fish tonight though

pearl that is a heck of a first day after obtaining a small amount of information. Makes it look easy, just go drop a spoon and fish on!

Well I went to the point where they surfaced the other night and knew that it went from 14-17 feet and dropped off into 40 foot of water pretty quick.. Just trolled a DD22 until I got a fish. Then when I got a fish I would go over the same spot.. And started catching them in that one spot.. My depth finder showed them solid but were all suspended. But when I put the trolling motor down. It showed them all schooled up on the bottom.

Going out this afternoon around. 5 with my god daughter and her parents... I'll see if I can pinpoint them again. My luck I won't get a bite lol

sounds like you have learned in just one or two trips what it has taken me years figure out...this forum sure has shortened the learning curve for me on how to locate and catch whites and hybrids, but you still have to put the time in on the water to find those magic spots...once you find them they will continue to be productive during similar conditions and times of year. that is UNLESS you fish Medina Lake like me, and your good spots keep turning into dry land and you have to keep reinventing the wheel