White Bass Lures

[CaptainJoe]

What do you use to catch White Bass on Table Rock Lake?

Horizonally, I use the Blue Box Super Vibrax, Silver or Gold, Number 3 or 4.

Vertically, I use either a White or Chartreuse 1/2 or 3/4 oz. War Eagle (comes with the swivel) spoon.

Others use the 1/4 oz. White Rooster Tail.

What say you?

[Wayne SW/MO]

Shallow Shad rap in Shad. Most our action has come when they bust nearby where we're bass fishing, haven't really targeted them. We generally keep a rod rigged for the occasion though.

[abkeenan]

Like Wayne i do not specifically target them but if we are fishing for the black/bronze fish and the whites happen to boil up then we will throw to them with a small grub on a jig head or a inline spinner type lure (panther martin/little cleo/blue fox/etc.) and i personally throw a 3 inch topwater bait just because there really isnt anything more exciting that topwater explosions is there?

-Brett

[Sam]

Trolling to locate them, or casting into boils - a 1/6 oz. or 1/4 oz. Roostertail. Anything around white or chartreuse is good for the body and tail color, but color doesn't matter much as long as the spinner blade is chrome, not brass.

For the spring run up the rivers, sometimes 1/8 oz. or 1/6 oz. Roostertails as above, but mostly maribou crappie jigs worked slow. I think there's a color progression during the run - white at the beginning, chartreuse in the middle, and purple toward the end of the run. Toward the end, that little "purple beetle" soft bait with a twin tail on a 1/16 oz. or 1/8 oz. lead head jig hook is hard to beat.

When it comes to Roostertails, I like the BPS "Uncle Buck" knockoffs better than the original Roostertails. The blades are wider and they spin easier, and more important, the hooks are bigger. With original Roostertails, I change out the treble hook - dunno why they're made with such little hooks. For trout, maybe?

[Dutch]

Buck tail jigs for me from 1/16 to 1/2 oz.

[Paola Cat]

Chrome/black or chrome/blue Rat-L-Trap or Spot when the fish are busting. Rooster tails and fuzzy grub jigs when spinning in creeks and rivers. Clousers when fly fishing. PC

[snakem]

white rattle trap with black back 3/8 oz works wounderful on the big ones.

Snakem Out

[Jason Essary]

All sound great, the only two I would add is white and purple swimming minnows on 1/16 heads, and my go to bait when nothing else works is a white 1/4 oz jigging spoon with a black dot painted on it. When they start boiling in the lake u can almost always reach them with it, throws a mile on a spinning rig, and just pump it back to the boat. When they go down, drop it down to catch the stragglers.

Side note, caught my biggest bass ever on 1/4 jigging spoon, bouncing it of the bottom right after the whites moved. 8.5 lbs, around 8 years ago.

[Sam]

I kinda avoid using plugs like a Shad Rap or Rattletrap for white bass, though I know they catch fish. There's another reason.

Have you ever been in a surface boil of white bass where they're going nuts all around the boat - and you're frantically trying to unhook one that ate ALL THREE points of a treble? That drives me crazy, 'cause the boil may stop in the next 10 seconds and I want to get another cast in!

I figure with multiple trebles, that deal would be twice as bad and I'd probably hook myself to the fish, too!

And yeah, I've caught big bass and catfish too, that were hanging around under those white bass boils - that really adds to the fun.

[shaker]

1/4 oz white Vibric Rooster tail, if you can't catch'm on that they ain't bite'n. And peel off that stupid mylar stickey thing on the blade makes them spin easier.