Advice for a rookie

As y'all can tell from my name, I am obsessed with chasing big blues. But... this year, I'm going to try and broaden my horizons to include white bass and maybe crappie. First things first. I am blessed with lots of grandkids that want to go fishing with me. Sitting and waiting on the big blues is tough for them so I am looking for some fast action fishing. I'm am looking to the white bass for that action.

All that said, what are the top things I need to know for catching a mess of white bass? And go...

Look up and read the many posts by Dennis Christian. He does an excellent job of describing his methods and techniques and has helped many on here.
Good luck and welcome to the forum.

Many thanks Marty. Been doing just that. Really appreciate the detailed posts about the how and not just pics of the what!

I don't target Sandies specifically, but I can tell you this. Every sandie I caught this year, I was crappie fishing with live minnows. A school of them would come through, while we were fishing a brush pile, or some other piece of structure, and we would be pulling them in as fast as we could drop a line. Then, just like how fast they started, they stopped. Every time though, they were easily seen on the fish finder. One time they were so thick, my bottom reading changed by 8 feet, while sitting still. I would say using the sonar to find them schooling would be my go to, if I were to target them specifically. And of course, following the schools of shad as well. Their behavior, seems to loosely follow the same as most other species in the same family, like stripers, and hybrids.

I would share with us the lakes you like to fish, and then some people will add some info to help you. The lake makes a big difference, and when you dial in on them you will have a great time. Me and the son caught some really nice Blues last year, and some were on light line fishing for sandies. I think they like to pick up the scraps.. Take care and look forward to the info. I am just about to do some upgrading of accerrories on the boat, so I think this year will be very interesting fishing for both crappie & sandbass.

Prosise

Good point prosise, I fish Lavon exclusively. I keep my boat at Collin Park Marina.

2020 was my first year fishing for white bass and hybrids. I'm not an expert but it's fresh in my mind what I needed to learn to become more successful. I'm fortunate to live on the same lake as Dennis so I used his map and techniques and I'm happy to say I regularly (not always) catch my limit now.

What I would do is look at the map that Dennis provides for CC and identify the patterns that work on CC lake and try to find similar structure on your lake. Once you can identify the right type of structure the next important thing is to learn how to identify fish using electronics.

I started out with downscan and now have upgraded to both down and side scan. Side scan makes it faster to scan an area but I still use my downscan as the final decision maker of when I'll stop and fish. This was one of my biggest learning curves this year. In the beginning what I thought were white bass were actually big schools of shad. Many times what I thought was a school of white bass was a brush pile with crappie. What I thought was a big school of hybrids I'm guessing turned out to likely be carp. Once I learned how to differentiate fish from the noise then the next most important thing was identifying a large school versus a small school. That was the biggest difference maker for me. Once I became much more choosey about when I would stop and fish, I started catching much larger numbers. In the beginning I would stop and fish any spot where I saw a few fish. Most of the time I would catch 2 or 3 immediately and then spend another hour catching the next 2.

Here are some example images that you might find helpful:

This shows my downscan and side scan from a school of white bass where I caught over 40:


This image is a huge school of shad but I didn't see many fish working this school but you can see the birds are active:


This is a small brush pile with some fish around it, a great place to lose you lures when white bass fishing:

Very instructive. Appreciate the knowledge...

Great pictures. And some times those darn pictures LIE. But you are correct in that you can get better at watching TV and narrowing the odds.
Thanks for taking time to post.

If you have birds on the lake they can and will tell you were the shad balls are which in turn will tell you were the bigger fish are!

A good pair of binoculars will aide in finding the birds.

In lakes with Whites, Stripers, and Hybrids it can and often will be all three of them under the Shad.

Now the Largemouth and Cats will be mixed in from time to time as well.

On a couple of the lakes I frequent there aren't tht many Whites so when I find the Shad they are most of the time Largemouth Bass.

Now years ago there were huge populations of Whites, Stripers, and Hybrids in Sam Rayburn but their populations are not what they used to be.

Nice screen shots man!

I've seen a lot of guys post limits of Sand Bass in the warmer months on Lavon. They all say the same thing basically. If you get on them early in the morning, you'll limit out in 30 minutes and then throw 100 back. I talked with a guy who guides on Eagle Mountain Lake and I bought some Ole Ugly Spoons from him. He says it'll be a month or so yet before jigging the spoons with a hair jig above it will produce but I think that will be the time I start targeting the Sandys. Until then I'll keep chasin the blues. Got a 23, a 25 and a 30 this morning! Thank you guys for all the info. It is very much appreciated...

Tim, I don’t fish Lavon a lot but always look around the island anywhere from 25 ft and shallower in the summertime and look at the glass house area. Good luck.

Champion Fish, that is solid advice. I've heard a lot of guys say look at the wind blown point off the island and glass house point. Thanks much...

Don't forget in front of the Church Camp in the warmer months if they are not skiing.

Great screenshots. Thanks for sharing.

JWC, thanks. That's a big if. I've been out on the water at 6:00 am and had wake boats and skiers on the water with me. That's what I love about winter. I was out Saturday morning and only saw 2 other boats in about 4 hours. I don't mind sharing. I guess they love being on the water as much as I do. That sonar image makes me want to go right now! Haha, thanks for sharing...

During the spawn on the river is hot action and fairly simple. I suggest to all my friends is to get light weight rods and reels. Something simple for the kids. Use 1/4 or 1/8 oz. jig heads and put on a 2 inch white Sassy Shad. Experiment with different retrieval’s. It gets good. When the bite is on...it’s on...damn near anything you offer will get results

Catfish Tim: In case you didn't find these, here are white bass fishing tips I periodically post to help folks new to white bass fishing. Hope this helps and good luck:

Tips for white bass I have posted over the years:
Having reached my golden years (now 79) I'm also interested in passing on fishing knowledge to the younger generations. This is a good thread you've started. I'll try to add some of my learnings regarding fishing for white bass. I've been fishing for them for 54 years, and over that time I've learned 4 lakes well: Eagle Mountain, Livingston, Tawakoni, and Cedar Creek. I will try to keep it simple and will no doubt repeat some things you or others already covered. So, in my humble opinion:

1. The easiest way to catch white bass is to find them feeding on the surface. You can catch them with almost anything - spoons, slabs, spinners, soft plastics, crank-baits, etc. Cast it out and reel it in at or near the surface. It's fast, exciting, and effective. This was my primary way to catch them the 1st ten years. We cruised the lake looking for birds circling/diving over the same area, or we looked for a group of boats. If neither were to be found, we looked for the actual surfacing fish. Calm weather was always at a premium because you could see the fish hitting from a long way off. Of course, we bought the most powerful binoculars we could find and could see birds on the other side of the lake. In spite of all these efforts, some days you just could not find surfacing fish. In fact, on Livingston, most days you could not find surface schooling fish. Many days on Eagle Mountain - after 30 minutes of early morning topwater action it was over. If you only know how to catch them this way, you look and look then give up and go home.

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. I used to use a paper map, but now use the detailed maps you can buy and load into your depth finder via a microchip. 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. Viewing the map, 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 use my depth finder’s GPS feature to mark each productive structure as a waypoint so I can get back to it.
4. Favorite structures: I know 4 lakes pretty well. My home lake now is Cedar Creek and I've come to realize it is such a good white bass lake because it is loaded with structures. So far I have found 30 structures where I frequently catch white bass, and I find new ones each year. Some of my favorites among these are (you guessed it) Saint Annes Point, Key Ranch Drop-off, Dam Drop-off, Dam Ridge, Enchanted Isle Ridge, Merimac Point, Kevin’s Point, Sunken Island, Game Warden Hump, Swing-set Hump, Long Ridge, and Long Ridge West, and southwest, northeast, and southeast corners of Spillway Hump. Eagle Mountain Lake has a lot fewer good structures. I know of ten starting at Pelican Island and going south and east. My favorites are the south edges (drop-offs) of the large flat extending south from Pelican Island, the well-known 27 ft hump that is about 100 yards out from the main dam about 100 yards east of its west end, the large tall point just to the east of this dam hump and a hump 24 ft deep not on the map out in the middle of open water between the Boat Club marina and the south end of the lake. At Livingston I counted about 20 structures I fish from the Hwy 190 bridge southward to about 1200 yards south of the Old Hwy 190 roadbed. My favorites are Old Hwy 190 submerged bridges (7 of them and each bridge has 3 structures - both ends and the middle), Submerged Kickapoo Bridge - both north and south sides of it, the point in front of old Frank's Marina, Old submerged Hwy 190 Roadbed where it reaches Trinity River on the east edge of the river. Best spots on Tawakoni are the Wolf Creek Humps, Holiday Humps, Finger Point, Anchor Point, Cloud Point, Sun Point, and Greenville Pump Station.

Of all these structures, my very favorite and most reliable are 4 of the submerged bridges on Old Hwy 190 roadbed: the one on the west side of the Trinity River channel, Hell's Half Acre bridge, and 2 bridges near the west end of old 190. Submerged bridges, if at the right depth, are ideal structures for attracting white bass. The ones on Old 190 are 10 to 12 ft deep on the road surface with rails on each side 3 ft shallower. Depth under the bridges varies from 22 to 30 ft. Shad feed on the algae on the hard road surface and on the rails. This in turn attracts the white bass. Fish can hang out in the shade of the bridge, and then when they want a meal, they swim up to the roadbed or rail and catch a shad. We park our boat at either end of the bridge or in the middle of it (of course after we find it using our electronics). We catch fish casting on top of the bridge road surface, casting down the roadbed and to the shoulders at the ends of the bridge, and casting over and pulling bait across bridge rails (which you can do with an inline spinner but not a slab or spoon without getting hung up). I call this last one "rail fishing" and made a post describing it last year. How effective is this bridge fishing? I went to Livingston twice last year. The 1st trip I fished with my sister in mid-July, and we went out from 7:30 to 11 AM and caught 110 on the bridges and came in. In early August I fished with long-time friend Randall Lovelace, and we fished the middle half of the day and caught 206 on the bridges. All these sandies were from 13 to 16 inches. All caught on Mepps spinners.

POST #3

What are my preferred baits and how do I work them? To cover this I thought I would start at the beginning of my white bass fishing and work my way forward. Before I start, let me say that my preferred way to catch whites started with a spoon, then changed to a slab and then to a Mepps spinner, which I have used now since 1976. The Mepps has worked so well I've not needed to try anything else, such as soft plastics or crankbaits.

When I started in 1967 my teachers - father-in-law Ray Fowler and wife's Uncle Charlie - used various silver spoons. I think slabs were not around yet or just getting started, and these guys were not quick to change from what they knew. The spoons commonly used were Sidewinders, Mr. Champs, Tony Accetta, and their favorite - Dixie Sirens and Dixie Jets. For smaller spoons I recall they had some Little Cleos in their tackle box - they didn't have any larger Little Cleos, which came to be my favorite spoon much later.

Here are the exact instructions Uncle Charlie gave me for working a spoon on the bottom: "Make a cast and let it fall to the bottom, jerk it up about a foot and let fall back to the bottom, then crank 3 or 4 turns of the reel and let it fall back to the bottom. Repeat all the way back to the boat." It seemed kind of mechanical, but when I was having trouble catching them, I'd remember this and it was effective. However, I experimented and came up with my own favorite way to work a spoon - after a cast and letting it fall to bottom, I would point the rod toward the line, take up the slack and make a long sweep up with the rod tip. I would most often get a bite when the spoon slowed or stopped at the top of my sweep. Of course, there were times it took a different action to get them to bite. I remember to catch them one time straight down in 30 ft water we had to raise the spoon up from the bottom a few turns of the reel and then bounce the spoon up and down rather violently (caught 180 that outing!)

We liked the Dixie Siren best because it had a beautiful smooth chrome-like finish and you could jig it or swim it like you can a Little Cleo. When slabs became popular (and cheaper to make) it put Dixie out of business (in the early '70s I think). I still have 3 of them and am afraid to use them lest I get one hung and lose it. Like everyone else, though, we began using slabs in the early '70s. We worked them just like the big spoons mentioned above. We caught tons of fish and thought we were doing as well as you could do.

If you have read my article on Mepps web site, you know what happened next. We discovered we weren't doing as well as we could. For those who haven't read it, I was having a rather mediocre day on Livingston working slabs on the Old 190 roadbed. But to my dismay, there was a troller picking up a fish every time he trolled by me - right where I was slabbing. To make a long story short I tried to emulate what the troller was doing by swimming a lure - a Mepps spinner - along the bottom and started catching them.

This brings me to the present. I now use Mepps plain Aglia silver spinners almost exclusively. The one I used on that day in 1976 was a #2. Through experience, I have found that different sizes work better in different lakes or circumstances. In Livingston #2 and #3 seem to work the best. Both of these are lightweight and we have to add a 1/4 oz mash-on weight about a foot up the line from the spinner to cast them and get them down to the bottom faster. Here in Cedar Creek the #4 seems to work best most of the time. The good thing about it is that it is heavy enough to cast and get to the bottom without adding weight.

The circumstance requiring a #2 instead of a #4 is when the new hatch of shad is the primary forage of the white bass. The fish are looking for a smaller shad and the #2 works well. Here this usually happens in mid-July and lasts a couple of months.

So, how do you work a Mepps? It is NOT like a slab, and I think it is different from a soft plastic in that for these baits most of the strikes are on the fall. With a Mepps, the strike is definitely on the retrieve - as you start it up from the bottom. I like this because it is easier to feel the strike on the retrieve and in my opinion more fun. Sometimes they almost knock the reel out of my hands. At other times it is a light bite - but always on the retrieve up from the bottom. Of course, occasionally I'll get one where the fish hit it on the fall. Most of the time when this happens it's a catfish.

This is the technique: Locate the boat where you can make a medium to long cast to where you marked fish. After bait gets to the bottom, lower the rod in the direction of the cast and take up the slack. Then simultaneously raise the rod tip and begin cranking the reel. Crank about six times. If they haven't struck the lure by then, stop cranking, release the reel and let the lure free-fall back to the bottom, and repeat the steps I just mentioned. Work it all the way back to the boat this way. I usually have to experiment with the speed of retrieval at each place I stop. Sometimes they want it slow, sometimes fast, and sometimes medium. I also test to see if they want a more vertical movement or more of a lateral, drag along the bottom movement. On deep humps with fish down on the bottom, I can park right over them and crank vertically and catch fish. But mostly I fish shallow (10 to 18 ft) structures and I'll park off to the side and make a medium to long cast and work Mepps across the structure. I find that a 5 or 6 to 1 ratio reel with 10 lb fluorocarbon line works best. I keep the tension on the reel spool very loose so the weight of the bait readily pulls the line out as it is falling to the bottom.

I said above that I "almost" use Mepps exclusively. The other bait I use, which I work like a Mepps, is a 5/8 oz or 3/4 oz Little Cleo. For some reason, it seems to do as well as Mepps in Eagle Mountain Lake. Not only can I work it like a Mepps, but also I can work it like a slab if needed. Sometimes at EM the only way I can get them to bite in the deep water is with a series of very sharp jerks using the Little Cleo.

One more thing about Mepps, it works just as good on surfacing fish. So, I never have to change from Mepps even when I run across some working under the birds.

I give more background and info re the discovery of the Mepps technique in my article in case you are interested. Dennis Christian Article on Mepps Web Site Some people think the Mepps technique is too hard to learn. Let me say that my mother, aunts, sisters and grandkids learned it. You might not get the hang of it on the 1st try but don't give up. Once people get the knack of it, they never go back to their slabs or whatever.

I tie the line directly to Mepps. The extra snap-swivel hardware negatively affects the presentation in my opinion. The only time I have a problem with line twisting is when I put a weight up above the Mepps as I do with a #2 or 3. I use mash-on 1/4 oz and, if I am not careful in the way I mash the ends, it will cause line twist, i.e. I accidentally created a propeller shape. Have to make sure the mashed ends are parallel to each other. Also, you can get line twist if you don't check the wire of the Mepps. On a hard strike, the fish will bend the wire, and if I don't notice and cast it that way, I likely won't catch a fish and my line may twist some.

The keys to catching quantities of white bass by structure fishing (as opposed to looking for schooling fish on the surface) are 1st to be able to locate fish using your graph and second knowing how to catch them once you have found them. Those who report trying to catch fish with Mepps seem to have problems in both categories.

Let's address locating fish. Using a detailed topo map of the lake you are fishing, you can see the humps, points, and drop-offs on the map. Go to these places and start looking. Stay focused. Don't let suspended fish sidetrack you. The fish you are looking for are just off the bottom. In my experience, it is very difficult to catch suspended fish, AND they are not relating to structure necessarily as I want. The structure pinpoints the fish for you - just go there and search for them. The more structures you know the better. At present on CC I'm finding fish on most of the structures I fish. This is how I locate fish. I don't look for birds or boats - just go to the structures chosen for the day.
The best pattern, at least on CC, is finding a concentration of fish just off the bottom in water anywhere from 10 ft to 18 ft deep. I have identified a lot of structures at these ideal depths where the bottom drops off into 25+ ft right next to the 10 to 18 ft water. Fish like to hang out right on the edges where water depth starts to plunge deeper. So, what I do is criss-cross my boat back and forth over the edge moving over a little from where I just crossed each time. I work my way like that along a drop-off, or hump, or ridge of a point. When I find fish, I mark them with a marker tossed overboard. Then I search around the marker to see where the most fish are relative to the marker. Finally, I prefer anchoring so I go upwind of where I want to cast and drop anchor. Mepps work best most of the time pulling up at an angle rather than straight up. I also believe that in really clear water at 10 to 13 ft depths you can spook fish if you park right over them - so another reason to park off to the side and cast to fish.

The most common mistakes I find people making: not locating a concentration of fish on the bottom before starting to fish, using too heavy a line, using #2 or #3 without adding weight, not expecting a very subtle bite a lot of times, not keeping the bait on the bottom when beginning retrieve, not checking the Mepps regularly to make sure wire is not bent or line is not twisted around the blade. One more tip: I have found that, when using a #4 Mepps, I can feel the soft bite a lot better if I have the rod pointing almost directly at the line during retrieval - say at a 10-degree angle to the line direction. I can't explain why but it makes a difference.

Structure fishing for white bass: The advantage of using a toss-overboard marker to mark the fish
I recently fished with a fellow who did not have a marker to toss overboard when we found fish. I was quite surprised that he felt it was not needed. The folly of not using one was quickly evident. We had located a good bunch of fish down on the bottom on a narrow point in 14 ft water that fell off abruptly into 30 ft water on both sides. I would have tossed a marker over close to but not necessarily right over the fish. That would give me a quick and easy reference point as to where the fish were - no matter where I was standing or sitting in the boat. Without the marker, I was guessing as to where to cast rather than knowing where to cast. Even if you have GPS and fishfinder right in front of you, it is easier to just take one quick glance at the floating marker and know where to cast. This works because the fish are relating to the structure (i.e. staying put) - not swimming around where you have to keep your trolling motor going to keep on them. Until I had this experience, I thought it was just obvious to throw out a marker, but I guess to some it isn't. So, I hope this helps you to work the fish more easily when you do find them on structure.

Some of you may think I'm nuts for telling where I catch fish. The reason I do is part of practicing what I believe - do unto others what you would have them do unto you. Let me explain - I have loved fishing all of my life(I'm 69) and started fishing for whites in 1967. From then until 1998 I was a working man and the only time I could consistently get out and fish was Saturday. As a committed Christian, Sundays were and are for church activities. So, I remember how I would search the fishing reports during the week looking for clues as to where I would have my best chance of catching fish on the coming Saturday. I would have loved for someone to share places where they were having success.

Here at Cedar Creek where I fish mostly, I know about 50 spots where white bass tend to hang out. I have 30 of the best on a map, and I refer to these named spots when I post my reports - to help the weekend fisherman have a better chance of having a successful outing. Anyone who wants a copy of my map may send a PM, and I'll send it to him. No, this doesn't cause me or the guides a problem with too many people on our spots. For me, I only get out 2 or 3 times a week and only for 2 to 4 hours. If someone happens to be on the spot I was intending to fish, I just go to another. As for the guides here, none of them fish like I do - relying solely on locating fish on structures and then anchoring down and fishing. The guides rarely anchor and prefer to look for surfacing fish. Only occasionally do we cross paths, and I give them plenty of room. The few new spots Billy Seaman showed me - they're not on my map, and I've promised not to reveal where they are.

So, all - especially weekenders - who love to fish for whites, are welcome to use the location info on my posts to improve your odds of finding and catching fish.

P.S. When I occasionally fish Eagle Mountain Lake, I won't post spots because (1) there are too few good spots and (2) guide Johnny Stevens fishes like I do.

An important key to making the Mepps work is to have it begin spinning instantly as you bring it up off the bottom. You should feel the spinner drag (resistance). For #3, 4, and 5 the spinning action has no trouble starting immediately (exception - the long-cast hesitates), but for #2 it often hesitates before beginning to spin, and the hesitation completely undermines the technique. To prevent this put a slight bend in the wire. If that doesn't help, bend it slightly in the opposite direction. I can't explain why this works - just got frustrated one day and started trying stuff. Good luck, and I'd love to hear how the Mepps technique is working for those who are trying it.

Though you can catch them with Mepps straight down, it is not required or even advisable to be right over the concentration of fish down on the structure bottom. When I locate a concentration on structure, I 1st mark them with a toss-over marker. Then I survey around the marker to see where the center of the concentration is. Then I go up-wind of the center and park so that where the boat ends up is a medium cast's distance from the center of fish. This let's me fish out of the back of the boat and cast down-wind to the concentration of fish. I have fish in range from a long cast back-left all the way around the back of the boat to a long cast back-right. Since I fish out of the back, I don't need a 2nd depth finder upfront.

https://fishcatchingtravel.com/techniques-you-can-use/how-to-catch-white-bass-a-simple-plan/

Hope this helps.

Dennis, Thanks for sharing you knowledge and the Mepps technique, this is something I will definitely try.

I grew up using Dixie Jets, and still have about a dozen. Like you, I almost never use them because I don't want to loose any. I actually put one on last week at Lake Tawakoni in an area that is free of trees and on a fishing pole with braided line and they still catch fish!. When Dixie Jet went out of business in the early 1970's my dad actually contacted the owner about buying the Dixie Jet manufacturing business. Dad went to Houston to visit the facility, but it was more than he could afford. The owner was in the oil field manufacturing and chrome plating business and he stamped Dixie Jets from solid brass sheets then deburred and chrome plated them. His oil field manufacturing and chrome plating business grew to the point that he had to shut down the lure manufacturing. Years later someone started selling Dixie Jet spoons, but with the words "Dixie Jet" stamped into the lure instead of the fish symbol, but they were not brass and did not have the same quality or action, thus they didn't catch fish like the original. I've got several of those, too. I saw another company was selling Dixie Jets again a couple of years ago. I believe they were about $8 each, but I never ordered any. I will see if I can find that web site again.

I found the web site Dixie Jet It appears that they are made in the USA and based out of Missouri now. Some of them are apparently still made of brass, so I might just need to give them a try.

I have been fishing for White Bass for 20 years now. In 2013, I stumbled across Dennis’s mepps technique here on the forum, and have never gone back to fishing slabs. The mepps technique is way more attractive to me then slabbing straight down, it just gets boring at times. Not to mention, I will often out fish slabbers.

I decided to add an another element to the sport and decide to make my own spinners. Dennis swears by the mepps because they spin better then any “clone” and I 100% agree they do. However, I just like the fact that I can make my own spinner, and go catch fish on them. Another added benefit is they are cheaper (about half price) and I can make them heavier so they cast further and drop faster. This comes in handy when you find surfacing fish.

Thank you Dennis for sharing your wealth of knowledge, it has helped me tremendously over the years and I have passed it on to others just like you so graciously have.

You're probably used to putting your baits right in front of the fish. Get used to putting your baits above the fish.
The clearer the water, the further up from the fish you may have to go. The murkier, the closer you may have to go.