Prime time:Fall White Bass Fishing

I have been coming across white bass consistently in the last month and have been passing them up to hybrid fish which has still be hit or miss. I keep finding white bass in the same areas and yet keep passing them up for a chance of finding hybrids schooled up somewhere. I'm always trying to think of what I should be fishing for during "peak times" of the year and didn't realize I may be missing some awesome fishing for white bass this time of year. I reached out to friend and mentor, Bob Maindelle of Holding the line guide service. He says Late October to Mid December offers some of the most consistent and numerous fish trips of the year and I should seriously think about trying to target them more often this time of year. I asked if he would mind sending me some graph shots from his high end Lowrance Carbon unit, Humminbird Solix unit, and garmin live scope to add to my humminbird Helix gen 1 chirp unit and make a youtube video showing all the screenshots from various technologies and units. He kindly agreed and so I put together a short and sweet video of graph shot examples of what an angler should be looking for this time of year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT0IUylGN8k

Well done Clay. The sand bass bite is definitely on ! The bigger fish will show up, just keep fishing . We are ketching a few mid size stripes on PK, 5-7 lbs, four or 5 a trip. No numbers like last year, but it is early.

I’m really considering getting a lowrance unit like an hds gen 3. I’ve noticed while out with bob how much easier and more obvious the bottom hugging white bass appear on DI then compared to humminbird (both my helix and his solix). I think if humminbird could just do a little software update to make the returns bigger on DI it would be comparable but right now lowrance definitely has the better DI picture. Bob said he uninstalled the Lowrance new fishreveal uodate because it made the DI returns much smaller yet still bigger than humminbird’s scale.

Yes my favorite time year to wade shallow points with a south wind! Sandies have been on fire! ( except this weekend)? Find the gizzards and they will definitely be close by! Even finding lots with egg sacks?!

Thanks for sharing

Great Video , Thanks for all your post !!!!!

I have been out the past few weekends and finally found a some Sunday evening, suspended in 15-20 FOW. Are you fishing structure? Humps and points? From the depths on the graph fishing looks like you are fishing next to structure or are you fishing next to river channels. This time of the year is hardest for me to catch white bass, when it gets cold and they go deep. I do great when its hot and they are hanging out on structure.

Great video, thanks for all of you informative posts.

Thanks and glad it was helpful. I’m finding them on main lake humps/points. My lake is a lot different than other lakes as found in south Texas or East Texas. Silted in lake with not much of a channel. The “channel” may go from 30 fow to 32 fow and back up to 30 feet. No major river running in it....

So I’m consistently finding them in four areas/ humps ranging from 14 fow to 28 fow. Bob Maindelle fishes lake Belton and Stillhouse and he is finding them along river channels and structure as well. I have fished with him four times in different parts of the year and was very interested when we caught fish in the same areas in summer as we did in fall and winter. However, he had told me overall the fish start migrating slowly up the lake towards spawning rivers as the winter progresses.

Here’s some more bottom hugging white bass I was catching today. Water dipped below 50 degrees and I found they were finicky and sluggish. I only could catch them deadsticking flukes. I had too big of flukes tied on and had numerous hits that didn’t result in hook ups so I plan to have some rods rigged for white bass next time and my usual rods rigged for hybrids (3 inch fluke compared to 5-7 inch). Here’s a few screenshots from today and a map shot of where I was fishing to give you an idea.

Tight break lines seam to be key, especially around sand bars and deeper water.