Posted: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:18 AM - 12,078 Readers
By: Shannon Tompkins
Unfortunate are anglers who consider only a handful of "premier" game fish worthy of their efforts and view white bass in the same light as epicures see factory-baked white bread - something to be shunned for its plebeian plainness.
Whites are pretty much a white-bread fish.
They're not gaudily-colored creatures, although their sturdily-built, silver/white/black bodies and that golden eye certainly are handsome.
They don't get particularly big; a two-pound white bass is a big one, three-pounders are almost unheard of outside a couple of East Texas fisheries and a four-pounder is a behemoth.
No one ever accused white bass of being especially cagey or demanding anglers employ finely refined tactics and specialized gear to catch them. They are voracious, open-water predators that, most of the time, will greedily grab anything that looks edible.
White bass aren't flashy fighters. They can hit quite hard and put up a determined, bulling fight that can be challenging and absolutely enjoyable if tackle is matched to the size of the fish - they aren't called "speed perch" for nothing. But white bass don't smash topwater lures, don't leap into the air and aren't particularly long-winded.
They can be fine on the table, especially if cleaned properly (remove as much of the "red" meat as possible) and prepared (frying is best) as soon as possible. But white bass filets don't handle freezing very well and, frankly, crappie and catfish and even largemouth bass are far better fare.
But whatever white bass might lack in the eyes of some, they more than make up in the hearts of other anglers. And often for many of the same reasons some anglers dismiss them.
Truth is, any angler who wouldn't deign fish for white bass doesn't deserve the pleasure of catching them or spending time in the places they're found this time of year.
That fact was underscored this past weekend on the Sabine River upstream from Toledo Bend Reservoir, where a pair of fishing partners and I joined white bass and white bass anglers in what is an annual late-winter ritual playing out in and on rivers across much of Texas.
That ritual looms large in why white bass have a dedicated following among anglers who savor the basic pleasures of recreational fishing.
When the first cold breath of winter arrived, white bass that spent most of the year in the inland sea that is 180,000-acre Toledo Bend, roaming the open water in large schools, chasing, attacking and devouring threadfin shad, began moving up the lake. Driven by instinct, they flowed into the Sabine River, pointed their noses into the current and swam.
Schools of white bass in other reservoirs across the state did the same, migrating from the lakes into the rivers and creeks feeding the reservoirs - the Colorado, Guadalupe, Llano, Pedernales, Nueces, Neches, Trinity, Navasota, San Jacinto and dozens of other streams.
They move upstream, often 20 or more miles, looking for the right place -a sand bar or a stretch of shallow, rocky-bottomed streambed - where, when water temperature, current, amount of daylight and maybe some other factors known only to white bass come together, the schools explode in a flurry of spawning.
This spawning, which can generate the fastest white bass fishing of the year, typically begins in December, gathers steam in January and February and peaks in March and April - a period when fishing for other freshwater species is at an ebb.
During the spawning run, schools of whites crowded in the rivers and streams are often further concentrated when they encounter some obstruction - the Lock and Dam on the Trinity River above Lake Livingston, shoals on the Sabine, the series of rocky shallows on at Colorado Bend State Park on the Colorado upstream from Lake Buchanan or Reimers Ranch on the Pedernales off Lake Austin - preventing their moving farther upstream.
Anglers able to locate and access these "pinch points" can enjoy wonderfully productive fishing immediately downstream from the obstruction; with so many hungry fish packed into small areas, it's almost like shooting fish in a barrel.
Even when schools of spawn-minded white bass aren't stymied and concentrated by an obstruction, they tend to gravitate to certain spots in a waterway.
River-running whites love sandbars, particularly the tapered, downstream side.
Eddies on the back side or downstream side of sand bars also are regular gathering areas, as are deep pools immediately downstream of a shallow stretch.
When river levels are up, as they often are from late-winter rains (but certainly aren't this dry winter), whites will pile into feeder creeks which typically hold clearer water than the silt-carrying main river channel.
Or the fish will concentrate along the edge of where clear water from the feeder creeks mixes with the murkier water of the main channel. These "color changes" often pull spectacular numbers of spawning-run whites.
No matter which structure you fish, if you catch a white it's a good idea to spend some time really working that spot. Whites are school fish, and where there's one there's more - often, many more.
We saw a little of all these behaviors over a couple of days chasing "Sabine salmon."
Fishing one morning with Jane Gallenbach, arguably the Sabine's premier white-bass guide and owner of River Ridge campground situated square in the middle of one of the river's best stretches for spawning-run whites, we plugged into the outstanding fishing that comes when whites are concentrated by a river obstruction.
A 10-minute airboat ride up the Sabine took us over a series of rock shoals that were practically impossible for outboard-equipped boats to negotiate, past a family of five otters and a collection of kingfishers, wood ducks, blue herons and other birds to an area where a seam of coal created a barrier to fish moving upstream.
Jane positioned the airboat in a spot she knew roaming schools of white gathered and we probed the eddy with eighth- and quarter-ounce Road Runner jigs, probably the lure accounting for more spawning white bass than any other lure.
Whites regularly smacked the jigs, and were great fun on light spinning tackle. We easily could have boxed dozens; most of Jane's customers land their 25-fish daily limit of whites.
Nearby, anglers in the scattering of other boats were scoring, too. And many of the boats held young anglers, most wielding easy-to-use spincast rigs to great success. Nothing hooks a young angler like success, and fishing for river-run spawning white bass have been seminal experiences leading to a lifetime of recreational angling.
It was a happy place, with lots of smiles.
The next morning, the three of us launched my boat from River Ridge tried the more traditional white bass search.
The Sabine, like most rivers in Texas this late-winter, is much lower than normal and we had to be careful and slow navigating the snag-filled channel.
We found a few fish holding at the mouth of creeks where clearer water oozed into the murky current - a classic East Texas river white bass spot.
But the best fishing was along a steeply sloped sandbar where whites could get out of the main current. We cast Road Runners near the bank, then worked them down the slope. Most of the fish were deep. And almost all of them were big females, fish weighing 2 pounds or more - the kind of white bass on which the Sabine has built its reputation as the state's premier fishery for heavyweight white bass.
It was a fine, clear, cool late-winter morning with great company, a riverine forest alive with birds and a flowing river filled with fish.
No, action wasn't as white-hot as it typically is on the Sabine this time of year. Blame that on low water levels and an especially cold winter that appear to be delaying the big pushes of whites. The same erratic action - great fishing success one day, slow the next - has been the rule on almost all other river-based white bass fisheries across Texas this past month.
But we caught fish - handsome fish that fought well on light spinning tackle and yielded fine filets - - in a pleasant setting on a day when most other anglers were sitting home, waiting for spring.
Not bad for a white-bread fish.
