Targeting Hybrids

I caught my first hybrid on lewisville today and want to figure out how to catch more. I was on a nice school of sandbass that were hitting every shad that I dropped down. I had two big perch in the livewell and decided to drop one down to see what would happen. I looked back a few seconds later and the rod tip was in the water and the drag was screaming from a nice 18-20” hybrid. I dropped another perch down, but no more takers.

Is there a way to specifically target hybrids without having to weed through 50 sandbass? Do they typically mix in with the sandies or do they form their own schools? Would I look for them in the same places as sandies this time of year (points, humps, ridges)?

I would be interested to.knowntjis as well. Im learning to catch them on Waco but they are always mixed with whites. I've had a guided trip on Chambers and we went and caught hybrids at one place and then whites in another. The guide never really explained why we were targeting each species on 2 different places but similar in stricture.

Larger baits , whether artificial or live. The location is your learning curve. This time of year the larger fish are beneath schoolers or chasing spawning shad against the bank early am.
Electronics will help you find them as they are post spawn and hungry.

I agree with gborg, bigger bait=bigger fish, usually. I fish Whitney and target stripers. I use artificial baits. Sometimes use large crankbaits, rattletraps, but mostly unbrella rigs. I put 4" swimbaits on outside and a 6" swimbait in center, i catch the bigger fish on the larger bait, usually. Its a learning curve. I am 68 yr young, been fishing for 60 years, just started striper fishing about 4 yr ago, every year gets better. Never fished with guide, self taught. Read what i can find on stripers, try to apply that info with basic fish techniques. Hybrids are pretty much the same. Keep at it.

Live perch are very often hybrid candy. My experience has been that perch with some red or orange coloring to them are better than the ones that are more drab - have no idea why. I'll usually find them in the same places as sandbass. They'll just take bigger baits than the sandbass can.

Hybrids are sterile. They don't spawn. In a letter to target them, I usually find a school of sz does and drop a slab 1.5 or. On the perimeter to stop through them to get to the hybrids. Since they don't reproduce, I catch and release.

Stripers and Hybrids will readily eat perch. Before the floods and the loss of most of the stripers from PK, I used to use perch all the time for bait due to the difficulty in finding shad. Caught a lot of good fish on them.

It absolutely can be done. Live bait is king, particularly 4" gizzard shad. For lures I like a large crankbait in water less than 15'. 2 oz pencil slabs from RSR Lures and 4' sassy shad are hard to beat in deeper water. Hybrids are a noticeably different mark than white bass on side scan.

They do mix often but I usually have no problem with catching way more hybrids than white bass with nothing different other than locating them accurately on the graph. I use my side scan to find the fish and hybrids and white bass look totally different on SI. You might think they are white bass and get ontop of them and they be small hybrids but you catch my drift.

Good bait and location is key. Like Chris said, 4" gizzard shad is hard to beat IMO.

One thing to remember on side scan is you will never see all the fish that are there. When I caught some 30 plus pound catfish, i placed them on a jug line and drove past them multiple times. A big 30 pound fish is easily missed 70 plus% of the time on the graph. I literally would drive past him 10 times and see him 1-3 times! And he didn't look that much different than a hybrid on the side scan. So when you see maybe 10 hybrids on the graph clustered together, there is likely over 100 fish there as a rule of thumb so if you see a handful of fish clustered it may be worth stopping and checking.

Highly depends on what lake . Both species are happy where bait is holding, but I think Hybrids tend to be more structure oriented than stripes and Sandies. Larger baits on smaller areas that have the right slope for hybrids. Be patient and fish small areas with big baits focusing more on the bottom and ignoring the smaller marks up high. We all different opinions with different outcomes that sometimes work and sometimes don't. That's what keeps us coming back.

I use a thumper for hybrids as well...