JACK WOLLITZ White bass offer thrills worthy of angler's time

Roaming like wolf packs, white bass occupy a wide-open niche in lakes and rivers where they provide great sport to anglers fortunate to encounter them.
They are not as pursued as other game fish like walleyes and bass, but white bass offer thrills galore as stubborn fighters and are pretty decent table fare.
White bass roam the open waters for much of the year, where they track large schools of shad. During spring, big pods of whites can be found moving up the reservoirs' tributaries or to the face of river dams, where they spawn.
As fall approaches, white bass head back to creeks and dams where they feed voraciously on the shad that head into the cooling waters.
Few local anglers target white bass specifically. But many are ready with a spinning rod and jig should they run across a pack of feeding fish.
Such was the case last weekend at Berlin Reservoir. Ihad gone there with my dad and brother-in-law to look for largemouth bass.
How things went
The green bass were in a funky mood thanks to the murky rising waters left behind by Hurricane Frances. But the white bass showed up to save the day.
We had ventured far south to Berlin's headwaters and found relatively clear and swift current in the tailrace of the Deer Creek Reservoir dam.
After a few exploratory flips into the flooded willows near the dam, it became quickly apparent the largemouths had lockjaw.
So we turned our attention to the tailrace and lobbed little jigs and twister tails. The result was a one-hour flurry that produced about 25 feisty white bass.
In the middle of summer, anglers working main lake areas at Berlin, Mosquito, Shenango, Milton and other nearby reservoirs often see schools of white bass push shad to the surface. The activity is obvious as the water boils in the feeding frenzy and gulls swoop in to pick off wounded baitfish.
Walleye anglers pick up white bass incidental to their intended quarry, as the whites aren't shy about striking trolled spinners, crankbaits and spoons.
The same holds true for bass anglers, who are surprised to see a stubborn white bulldogging with their bass lures.
Fisheries managers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and many other states also run successful stocking programs with hybrid varieties of white bass. They cross whites with striped bass to produce the hybrids, popularly known as wipers.
Their size
Though white bass tend to average 10 to 12 inches and weigh around one pound, a few mature to 15 or 16 inches and weigh two pounds. The hybrids, on the other hand, often exceed 10 pounds.
Huge wipers are caught every year on the Ohio River, some topping 15 pounds. My personal best scaled 13 pounds. It hit a small crankbait I was working along a smallmouth spot on Shenango Reservoir in November.
Because of their unpredictable behavior -- they move great distances around the lake, as well as up and down in the water column -- white bass are more difficult to pattern than fish such as crappies, walleyes and black bass (largemouths and smallmouths).
In general, however, those who want to fill a cooler with white bass should look for breeze-tossed main lake areas in the summer. Those locations will be more likely to have congregations of shad, which is the preferred food for white bass.
After Labor Day, as the water cools, white bass will follow the biggest shad schools into the creek arms. They are particularly adept at using the current to help them feed, so places with moving water and shad are likely to hold catchable numbers of whites.
Jigs are probably the all-around best lure for white bass. One-eighth-ounce ball jigs with white or chartreuse twister tails or marabou bodies are excellent choices.
When the fish are schooling on the surface, small topwater lures will draw strikes, as will one-fourth-ounce lipless crankbaits and metal vibrating baits like Sonars, Cicadas and Silver Buddies.
Next time you visit your favorite lake, keep a rod rigged for whites, and you may save the day if your favorite species is not in a cooperative mood.
jwwollitz@aol.com