Limiting Out On Linesides
Finding and Taking Linesides
Editor’s Note: Catching white bass is relatively
simple because the fish are extremely aggressive –
eating many types of smaller fish, including perch,
bluegills, crappie and gizzard shad besides feeding
on  insects
and crustaceans – and will hit a wide variety
of baits. The biggest problem involved in catching white
bass is finding the fish so anglers have a target for
their casting. Since populations of white bass fluctuate
from year to year because of the fragility of the eggs
and the requirement of nearly-perfect weather conditions
for hatching, the fishing is hot and cold. Although
the white bass can be harvested heavily without harming
the fishery, the fish successfully reproduce only every
three to four years in most areas.
The second-easiest tactic of finding white bass is
to look for the gulls as Captain Ahab did from the decks
of the Pequod before the white whale broke his boat
in half. Seagulls and other birds that feed on shad
or minnows have something in common with the white bass.
They both like an easy meal of shad or minnows. Where
you find one, the chances are very good that you will
find the other. Diving birds in white bass water are
much like a neon light blinking the words, “The
fish are here.” Fishing a plunking cork, a jig,
a tailspinner or a small spinner bait will all yield
white bass beneath the gulls. Another easy place to
locate linesides is in the tailraces of most hyd roelectric
dams, where the water is whirling.
The sun was just peeping out from under the covers
of darkness before it stepped into the glory of a new
day years ago when my son John, a friend of mine, John
Hill and myself floated out on Wilson Lake in the tailrace
of Wheeler Dam on the Tennessee River to search for
white bass. Sitting on the turbulent water, we waited
for feeding action. But the schooling fish never showed-up
where they had for the last two weeks. However, after
a 20-minute wait, shad exploded as the water came alive
with fish. Like a quarterhorse jumps from the starting
gate, we raced our boat to the feeding fish. Before
the 18-foot flat-bottomed craft came to a full stop,
we were casting and retrieving. My son John’s
ultralight rod pretzeled first. The white bass hit with
such fierceness  that
it snatched him to the side of the boat and up on his
tiptoes. He had not expected the fish to strike so savagely.
I grinned and said, “Boy, you better not let that
fish pull you…” Before I could finish that
sentence, fish struck, and my drag burned-off line rapidly
as did Hill’s. The rally only lasted 10 minutes.
And then as magically as the fish appeared, they vanished
minutes. The white bass, which is a current feeder,
finds large concentrations of baitfish and highly-oxygenated
water in the swift tailrace current. Even in the hot
summer months of July and August when angling for most
other species slows down, white bass action can be fantastic
in a swift-running tailrace.
Since there are generally great quantities of water
being discharged from hydroelectric plants, pinpointing
the schools of white bass can be difficult at best because
the fish roam widely in a tailrace current. Many bassers
believe that trolling is the best method of finding
and taking stripes in tailrace areas. Two trolling tactics
that work well are bottom bumping and crankbait trolling.
The bottom bumpers use 20- to 25-pound test line, a
weight heavy enough to carry their lines to the bottom,
a three-way swivel 12 to 18 inches above the weight
with a 6- to a 12-inch piece of leader and either a
jig or a spoon attached. Above the first swivel, a second
three-way swivel is tied with another piece of leader
and another swivel and/or jig. That swivel is faste ned
directly to the line. By running that boat across the
current, these bottom bumpers present the baits to the
deep-feeding white bass. This method is also effective
on hybrid bass, which are a cross between the white
bass (Morone chrysops) and saltwater stripers.
However, crankbait trollers approach their trolling
in a different way. Using a deep-diving crankbait like
Bagley’s DB 3, a Model A bomber or the Maxi R,
an angler attaches a 10- to 20-pound-test piece of line
to the last treble hook of his crankbait. Then he fastens
a small jig or spinner to the end of the line and trolls
the lure either across or down current. Trollers will
catch the white bass on either one or both lures, depending
on the size and aggressiveness of the white bass. For
the boatless sportsmen who fish the tailrace, casting
small spinners like the Beetle Spin, the Mepps spinner
or the Panther Martin can be highly productive. These
fishermen can stand on the bank, cast into the current
and have just as fast fishing as the boating anglers.
These are the easy tactics for finding and taking linesides
and pay dividends in almost any area where the white
bass swims.
TOMORROW: HUNTING ISLAND WHITES
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