White Bass On Bull Shoals

[Phil Lilley]

Can anyone figure out white bass and their population fluctuations from year to year? Back in the 80's, I used to see huge schools of whites on the flats busting shad all summer into the fall months- haven't seen it since.

On other lakes, and the ones I'm thinking of are in Oklahoma and Texas, white bass are always in abundance, almost nuisance fish to some anglers.

Any ideas?

I'm going to post this on Table Rock forum too.

[laker67]

Since 08 there have been at least 2 high water events in the spring. May have something to do with it, don't know.

[Phil Lilley]

http://www.in-fisherman.com/2011/12/07/another-white-bass-update/

Ned just sent this to me.

[Dutch]

We noticed the lack of them in 2003 in the spring. Our numbers had decreased by at least 90%. 2004 was worse and I quit going down there.

Divers reported seeing the bottom completely covered with dead ones in 2003. The MDC did not recognize any problem until much later when they had some meetings at Forsyth to discuss the situation. I had called the biologist and told him but his samples were around Theodosia and he was still seeing numbers there.

[exiledguide]

http://www.in-fisherman.com/2011/12/07/another-white-bass-update/

Ned just sent this to me.

It amazing how you learn the answer to questions that have been unatainable, like when watching Roy Rodgers and othern western movies as a child in the late 1940's and early 50's I always wandered who the comedic sidekick was refering to when I heard them say "well Dad Gum Roy" Now I know it was reference to a family of well known nowadays but back then pioneer white bass fisherman referenced in the In Fisherman article a Mr Gum a well kown white bass fisherman. Maybe some one can find if Dad Gum is the present Mr Gum's Dad or Grandad?????

[Wayne SW/MO]

I suspect there are two problems. The first would be spring rains. There have been a few years when they streams blew out every other day or so it seemed. This would wash a lot of eggs in to the lake where they can't hatch.

The other thing is the colder winters that we have had and which will kill off the Threadfin in large numbers. The sand bass lakes farther south have also seen colder wetter, but not to the extent we have.

[gotmuddy]

Norfork still has plenty of white bass. The most amazing thing I have seen was white bass boiling the surface of the water on lake Somerville near Brenham, TX. Everything we through caught fish.

[Mike Worley]

We are still catching white bass from Bear creek down to Bull Shoals dam. We have a few days that we don't but most days they seem to be out on the flat points in about 30'-60'. Jigging spoons in white or chartruse seem to be the best baits. The whites are moving to the back of the creeks after the shad. The middle & lower end of the lake seemed to have a pretty decent population of white bass this year. The theory of high shad populations = low white bass populations is interesting. When we are catching white bass some days we catch a mixture of year classes from little 6"ers up to jumbo 4+LBers. While I don't think the whites have bounced back to the numbers we had in the 90's they have really improved over the slump we had a few years back.