I'm new to the white / hybrid scene, had some luck bouncing slabs off the bottom, but I have recently heard of drifting or trolling with slabs. This has obviously caught my attention so I thought I would ask the experts.

1. How would one go about drifting a slab? would it be similar to drift fishing for cats, drop it to the bottom, come up a couple cranks and let er sit? Or would I need to be "jigging" it as I drift along?

2. If actually trolling, what speed would you recommend? Could I troll using the outboard or should I stick to the trolling motor?

any and all advices is greatly appreciated.

I've known people to deadstick a slab in the winter on a day with very little wind drifting, just roll it up off the bottom a number of turns . As far a trolling never heard of trolling with a slab.

I'll troll or drift while bouncing a slab just prospecting around humps and points

I do that aswell, but what i was reading, they were covering a ton of water. Maybe using down riggeres? I don't know how those work either!

Around 3mph seems to work well for us.

2.7 to 3.3mph works great for me. I only troll crank baits. No tail spinners or slabs for me when trolling. I also only use my big motor when trolling. 150 HP

2.6-3.1 MPH when I troll. The speed definitely makes a difference so vary it until you find what they like. As for trolling slabs, you might check out Moe's Tackle Shop and grab a couple of conniption spinners to put in front of the slab. I'd also recommend rigging up a Hell-Pet rig or two to try. The Hellbender acts like a downrigger for the Pet spoon. I fished this rig a couple weeks ago and out-fished my dad easily 5:1. Good luck to you.

these are all great ideas, definitaly something for me to try. I am forever cruising around looking for new humps on the imager, why not drag a few lures!

Try a pet/spoon rig 2-3mph and hold on in about 20'

Myself and 2 of my buddies use down riggers, when it gets hot in July and August it can be very effective. I typically use 3/4 oz jig head with spinner with a sassy shad on back, have had success with wild eyes also.

Different strokes for different folks: I can cover a lot more water and structures searching for fish with my depth finder and only actually stop to fish when I find a decent concentration. I have resorted to drifting when fish have been active in an area but are not concentrated - especially for hybrids. I have trolled 3 or 4 times since 1967 and that was only when I could not locate fish on depth finder. That was a long time ago when the depth finder was a flasher. With today's high quality, high resolution sonars and down/side scanners one can almost always find fish.

Here at Cedar Creek we are loaded with good white bass structures from the Hwy 334 bridge south to the dam. When I go out I pick a section of the lake and look at those structures. This year I'm finding concentrations of white bass down on structure quickly in the vast majority of locations.

We drift with slabs all the time. It's kind of an art to set up the drift up wind of your target fish area.
The main thing for us is that we don't engage the reel after the slab hits bottom, instead we keep our thumb on the spool and as we drift the slab tends to drift up off the bottom so we just let go of the spool and let a little more line out just to stay closer to the bottom. If you don't do that you'll be slabbing for suspended fish. But that may be where you want to be sometimes.