Lake Ray Hubbard fishing guide Brandon Sargent with Lead Slingers Guide Service eased the throttle back on his big 27 foot custom guide boat and studied our route to a fishing hotspot on his GPS. On close inspection, I could readily see the spot we would be fishing had been visited many times, the screen on the graph had saved the previous routes and once over the submerged ridge, the spot was completely blotted out on the graph.
I’d fished with Brandon many times in the past and never failed to have a great time on the water and return to his boat slip and cleaning station at Sapphire Bay Marina with a cooler full of fish.
We began the morning working isolated schools of white bass feeding on the surface. This was a run and gun technique that produced a strike or two and then the small schools sounded and we used binoculars to search out more surface feeding action. Brandon is all about putting his clients on fish and soon, just as I predicted, he positioned himself behind the controls and I knew his intentions. It was time to find fish holding on bottom structure and the often nonstop action that bouncing lead slabs near bottom produces.
“Luke, we can continue chasing these little schools around but it will be a week or two before this top water action gets dependable," Brandon predicted. "Let’s head to one of my honey holes and sack em’ up...what do you say?”
YES! I was all in with the plan! I absolutely love fishing with slabs. Through my many years as an outdoors writer I have fished for ‘whites’ on many lakes across the country with guys and gals that make their living catching them. I always inquire about the best lure presentation on a given day. Some days fish bite best when the baits are slowly bounced off the bottom, other times they will hit best when the lures are falling.
I watched Brandon catch four or five fish, one after the other while I was experimenting with techniques. A glance at the graph indicated a huge school of whites stacked up under the boat but I was not catching. Brandon was fishing the opposite side of the boat and I went over to watch what he was doing.
“Let the bait hit bottom then begin reeling, pause every couple cranks of the reel and jiggle the bait.," he explained. "If you don’t get bit within about six feet from bottom, drop the bait and repeat.”
I followed instructions and instantly began catching fish. Many people think white bass are the easiest of fish to catch and because of their numbers and the fact they are often found in large schools, catching them can be extremely easy—once you determine the correct lure presentation.
To be a successful white bass angler, it’s important to understand the fishes’ patterns. During their spawn, they gravitate to moving water; creeks and rivers above reservoirs with a healthy white bass populate are often thick with spawners in March and April. Not all white bass spawn in streams above the lake, documented spawns regularly occur around points where wind creates current.
Usually in mid to late April, shad begin spawning close to shorelines and white bass, hungry and needing to recoup from the rigors of spawning are up shallow feeding heavily, especially during the first couple hours of daylight each day. As the sun rises the baitfish and game fish which include not only white bass but catfish and every other species in the lake, gravitate to deeper water.
Right now, huge schools of shad have begun roving the lake, stacking up on deepwater ridges, humps and roadbeds. As we experienced, sporadic top water feeding activity is already underway but will increase as the water continues to warm.
The use of sonar is key in finding these submerged hotspots. Brandon suggests studying your lake map and locating spots where a couple of submerged humps or ridges join or possibly finding a long levee and locating heavy concentrations of baitfish.
“White bass can often be found on the downwind side of bottom structure, Says Brandon. Baitfish tend to stack up on these spots and the whites ambush them as they move across the top of the humps. Most of the fish will be caught on the slopes of the structures but when a big pod of shad hangs up on top of the hump, expect the whites to be there. They go where the bait is when actively feeding. Find the bait and you are well on your way to a tasty meal of blackened or fried white bass fillets.”
Eating white bass
Larger or “Magnum” white bass have a more defined blood line (red meat) than smaller fish. I take the time to trim the red meat from the larger fish during the filleting process but the barely keeper white bass up to about 12 inches long are my favorite to clean and eat. While there is a little bit of red meat on the outside of the fillet, most of it can be removed during the filleting process by not bearing down as hard with the knife when removing the fillet from the skin side.
After our early morning trip, I was home with a gallon bag filled with 100 fillets, mostly from white bass averaging 11 or 12 inches in length. I wanted a quick lunch and decided to blacken a skillet full which is much faster than frying, no oil or batter to fool with. The key to tasty blackened fish is the seasoning. I buy the larger containers of Open Season blackening from Cabela’s. It has the just right salt content as well as a blend of spices that complement blackened fish. With a little butter in my old cast iron skillet and fresh lemon to flavor and keep the fillets from sticking, I had a gourmet meal in about 15 minutes.
Brandon expects this steady action on fish holding to bottom structure to continue but he’s watching closely for the widespread surface feeding action that is about to begin. When this occurs whites can be readily caught on downsized top water plugs but lead slabs are my go to bait. When the fish are on top, chasing shad, I make long cast, hold the rod tip high and ‘shake’ the bait to keep it near the surface.
Contact Lead Slingers Guide Service at 469 989 1010. Visit the website for Sapphire Bay Marina at www.sapphirebaymarins.com
Contact outdoors writer Luke Clayton through his website www.catfishradio.org
