Essential Bank-Fishing Tackle Pack
This selection of gear carried in a handy satchel will help you tackle any fish
Tackle box: Tackle Logic Day Tripper System with a soft-side
carry case, five laminated zip-seal bags and a hard-plastic StowAway box with divided compartments that will carry everything for a day of bank-fishing (www.tacklelogic.com)
Three boxes of hooks: 50
Tru-Turn Blood Red Aberdeen Panfish Hooks, Size 2; 50 Tru-Turn O'Shaughnessy Catfish Hooks, Size 2/0; and 50 Tru-Turn Bronze Aberdeen Hooks, Size 6 (www.
truturnhooks.com)
Sinkers: Water Gremlin Pro Pack with 63 Snap-Loc sinkers and removable split shot (www.watergremlin.com)
Floats: Thill Gold Medal Float Kit Assortment with seven different balsa floats, five bobber stops, 10 red beads and six silicone sleeves (www.lindylittlejoe.com)
Lures: Beetle Spin Strip Pack with 10 Beetle Spin lures (www.johnsonfishing.com) plus
a selection of Rebel's perfect-
for-panfish "creature lures,"
including the Big Ant, Bumble Bug, Cat'r Crawler, Crawfish, Creek Creature, Crickhopper Popper, Hellgrammite, Tadfry and Wee
Frog (www.lurenet.com)
30 innovative tactics to help you catch more trout, white bass, bullheads, crappies, yellow perch and sunfish.
Jun 3, 2004
White Bass
During much of the
year, white bass are inaccessible to bank-fishermen. Whites aren't bank-huggers like sunfish. They usually roam open water in lakes and rivers where shad, their favored prey, are abundant. For a week or two each spring, though, white bass leave open water and ascend tributaries to spawn on shallow shoals. During these runs you can catch whites from shore.
13 Watch the Temperature: A 55-degree water temperature triggers the upstream migration. To pinpoint prime streams, call your state fisheries department. It can tell you where the runs occur. Read local fishing reports or call bait shops to learn when a run begins.
14 Beat the Crowd: Productive bass runs are always jam-packed. Bank-fishermen sometimes line up shoulder to shoulder. Try night-fishing. The bass don't mind feeding in the dark and the crowd of anglers will be absent.
15 Fish the Jumps: White bass spawn over shallow gravel bars and shoals, but anglers can shortstop them anywhere along a prime spawning stream. Runs usually progress in waves as schools of fish move upstream. Later in summer, it's still possible to fill a stringer of white bass from the bank, providing there are abundant numbers of minnows present. Whites always school, and fishing the "jumps," as the surface feeding frenzies of white bass chasing minnows are called, is a summer blast.
16 Use a Minnow: White bass aren't choosy about lures, so long as they look like minnows. Favorite artificials include 1/16- and 1/8-ounce jigs; light spoons (1/8-ounce Al's Goldfish, 1/16- or 3/16-ounce Dardevle Midget); small crankbaits (Norman Deep Tiny N, Bill Lewis Tiny-Trap); 1/8-ounce spinners (Mepps, Rooster Tails), blade baits and tailspinners (Gay Blades, Mann's Little George) and jig-and-minnow combos. If you can buy minnows or shad or seine your own, try fishing a bottom rig on a wide, relatively shallow sandbar. The heads and tails of islands are also magnets for white bass in summer.
17 Double Down on Jigs: Where allowed, many aficionados work tandem-rigged jigs. Tie on a 1/16-ounce jig in your favorite color, then tie another of a different color about a foot above it. Cast upstream and reel in slowly, occasionally imparting little hops and twitches with the rod to move the jigs across the bottom.
18 Try a Jigging Pole: If the stream you're fishing has deep pools, try this: Instead of a casting outfit, use a 12- to 16-foot jigging pole with line the same length as the pole. Tie on a jigging spoon and work it vertically in the pool. Jerk the spoon hard, raising it a few feet, then let it flutter down on slack line. Most strikes come when the spoon falls, so be watchful.
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