Still had my boat on trailer from Limestone trip, so I slipped over to Palestine for 3 hours of fishing yesterday from 3:30 to 6:30. Plan was to fish the submerged roadbed next to the Hwy 155 bridge, sitting in the shade of the bridge in the 100+ temperature. Worked out pretty good with 39 white bass caught. After locating them at the end of 2 of the submerged bridges, I eased boat back into the shade and caught most of the fish from the shade with the fish a medium length cast away. Ended when storms rolled in and ran us all off the lake.

After fishing three days at Cooperin the heat I can safely say that shade is good.

We caught them from the same spot on the submerged Neches river bridge Thursday. Really nice Sandies. But, it was HOT.

Still no Hybrids after 7 hours of looking from daybreak to 1 PM.

From about 5 PM til dusk the bridge shadow on the tallest portion of the bridge gives just enough shade to fish the submerged bridge in the shade. Nice on 100 degree days!!

What are you using on these white bass? We have been on them in that same spot a few times but never pull close to 40 out.

Welcome to TFF! Click on the 2 articles in my signature block. They will explain how I use Mepps spinners to catch white bass in Texas lakes. Also, search my posts for how I fish the submerged bridges. I call it "rail fishing."

welcome aboard woodiLand- the man knows of what he speaks

Thanks so much for the info and the welcome, Mr. Christian. I ran out and bought me a handful of Mepps this evening! I'm gonna be chomping at the bit for the next few days until I get back out there.

Tip: Spend a little time locating as close as possible the exact end of the bridge/rail and mark it with toss-over marker. I actually caught most of these fish throwing on to the roadbed within 3 to 4 yards of the end of the rail. Trying to pull Mepps over the rail from a medium length cast from the side - it was difficult to keep from getting hung on the rail. I usually do rail fishing while boat is parked over the bridge and pulling Mepps up at a steeper angle.

Most of the fish Saturday were right at the end of the bridge. Only caught about 10 pulling over the rail.

appreciate the tips. some of these whitebassers think its a rocket science secret on ray hubbard im seeing. gonna try a mepps too next time out. thank ye

Dennis, my DI shows huge numbers of fish under the submerged bridge there, along with the ones on top. I've caught SB, YB, and cats there when I can hold the boat right over the railing to fish down the outside of it.

Do you fish for the ones under the bridge, and how.

Dennis , didn't you get the I pilot ? And if you did .. How is that working with your mepps technique ?

Eastexn: I don't try to catch em down under there, but have caught a number of cats when I toss the Mepps over the rail to start working it back and over; some big blues and flatheads -they take the Mepps on the fall.

My dad and I also came upon a guy sitting right over the submerged bridge on the west side of the Trinity River channel at lake Livingston and fishing for big cats down under it. He motioned us over to his boat and he had 4 or 5 huge cats lying in the bed of his big jonboat. Looked like they weighed between 15 and 50 lbs. Said he was using blood bait and lowering it down beside the bridge to the fish under it. There the bridge top is 12 ft deep and the lake bottom is 25 ft.

JV, I did indeed and it works great - just as if I had the anchor out but better. I like to fish from a stationary position with my toss-over marker out the corner of my eye. With my postion and marker position as reference points, I have in my mind's eye a picture of the structure I am fishing - fixed relative the these reference points. I can throw my Mepps to the various parts of the structure. Once I begin catching fish, I know what part of the structure they are on and can keep tossing the Mepps there.

I'm finding ways the iPilot is better than using an anchor, and, so far, one way it caused a problem. Ways it is better: When I get the Mepps hung on the bottom, it's much easier to just use the remote to move over to it and jiggle it right over the bait to get it loose. Then hit return and iPilot goes back to its last spotlock position. A second benefit is that it is much faster than an anchor and less work to move to a new structure. Third, it's a lot easier and less aggravating to move position when the fish moved just out of reach but are still on the same structure. No doubt I'll discover more benefits as time goes by.

The problem I discovered: when I'm anchored and get a line hung, sometimes I'll just put the rod down and use a different rod until I'm ready to move over to get the bait un-humg. We did this the other day when there was some variable wind. You guessed it, the line of the rod that was hung got in the trolling motor. It took a full ten minutes to unwind it and get it out of the prop.