Home >> Freshwater Species >> Bass Fishing >> White Bass

White Bass

Introduction

White bass (morone chrysops) look like miniature striped bass and are often referred to as "stripers." They often go by several other names as well: white lightning, barfish, striped bass, silver bass, striper, stripe, sandbass and sandy.

Distribution

Originally found in lakes from the Great Lakes south to the Mississippi Valley, white bass are now stocked throughout most of North America's lakes and in a few large rivers.

Habitat

White bass like clear, cool lakes at least 300 acres in size and with stretches of water at least 10 feet deep. They also inhabit ponds, reservoirs, streams and rivers with deep pools.

Features

White bass are shorter, have smaller heads, deeper bodies, and closer dorsal fins than striped bass. White bass also have humped backs.

Colourization

The white bass is bluish-silver with indistinct dark horizontal lines interrupted along the length of its body.

Size

Most fish are between one and three pounds, but some weigh as much as six pounds. The life span of the white bass is between two and four years.

Feeding Habits

In clean, calm manmade lakes and in lakes of over four hundred acres, the bass thrive on gizzard or threadfin shad. Like other species of fish, larger white bass feed in deeper waters during the day, and return to the shallows at dusk.

Reproduction

In the late spring or early summer when the water temperature reaches 60ºF, white bass spawn. In six to ten feet of rocky-bottomed water the female spreads about one million eggs that hatch in a few days depending on the weather. The white bass population varies dramatically on a yearly basis because even a slight change in water temperature will prevent the bass eggs from hatching.

The hatched fry school together and feed on zooplankton and try to evade other predatory fishes. The fry grow up to eight inches their first year, and begin to feed on small fish.

Spring Techniques

Sometimes a school of white bass will surface-feed on small shad during the day. Use the same techniques as for catching striped bass, but use smaller lures.

For this modestly sized fish, use ultra-light spinning gear and four-pound test line. Search for the bass in water from fifteen to forty feet deep, and cover the whole area by slowly trolling any silver spoon, spinner, crank bait or small plug close to the lake bottom. Use a slow stop-and-go retrieve, and consider adding a streamer fly on a foot-long trailer line behind the lure to imitate an injured bait fish.

In temporarily muddy or discoloured river water, white bass are attracted to the vibrating spinning lures. Tie a small spinner six or so inches above a hooked minnow, and cast to the other side of the current, keeping the lure spinning as it is retrieved.

Winter Techniques

In the winter, fish below a dam on a large, moderately slow river. Try a small 1/8-ounce white or yellow jig or a small minnow hooked through both lips. Cast into fast breaks in the current or in the calm backwater below the dam. Let the bait or lure drift in the current or retrieve it with a quick jerky motion. In the calm water, use a minnow and a bobber. Other anglers catch white bass using small yellow plastic grubs. Experiment.

If you would like to see additional species added to our list of freshwater fish, please email your request to admin@fishresource.com and we will do our best to add it. Or, if you have specific questions regarding individual species, please email ask@fishresource.com and we will do our best to answer them.

Freshwater Fish Species

Search Fishresource.com Try searching Fishresource.com or search Google for additional information on freshwater fishing, North American freshwater fishing resorts, guides, camps and lodges and let us know if you have a link that we should add to this site by sending an email to: links@fishresource.com.

Enter your search terms Submit search form   Web www.fishresource.com