Entry 220-1

Mid-September until Mid-October Fishing with Roger Stegall at Pickwick Lake

Part 1: Bet on the White Bass

Question: Roger, how do you find and catch bass, and how big are the white bass you’re catching at this time of year?

Stegall: The white bass follow the shad, as do the stripers. A school of shad is the white bass’s McDonald’s. Wherever that school of shad goes, the white bass follow. From September to Thanksgiving, the white bass will be following the shad into pockets and other places where the shad hold during the fall. Because of the oxygen depletion in deep water, the shad minnows move up to the shallow water. The white bass aren’t the only fish following these schools of shad. I catch stripers, largemouths, smallmouths and just about every fish that swims when I find a school of shad.

Last year, I was guiding at this time of year, and we were catching largemouths on every cast, using a Strike King spinner bait and fishing right off the bank. These bass weighed from 1-1/2- to 3-pounds each. I heard a fish blow-up on the other side of the boat and saw white bass feeding on top. We took a watermelon-shad-colored Strike King Series 3 crankbait and started catching 3-pound white bass on the other side of the boat. We caught 50 or 60 white bass on the other side of the boat. We were in such a large school of shad that we could catch largemouth feeding on the shad near the bank, cast away from the bank toward the main lake and catch white bass.

My favorite bait for white bass at this time of year is a Strike King Series 5 crankbait. One of my favorite colors is pearl white with a red eye. The red hooks on the bait help you get bites. Other colors that work well for me are watermelon shad and pearl with a chartreuse back. The new shore minnow color that’s a shad color with a little chartreuse stripe on the side will be a really-good color. Kevin VanDam’s Sexy Shad also will be a great color this year.

When the white bass are holding in 4 to 5 feet of water, I really like to fish the Series 3 crankbait. If they are more shallow than that, I prefer a 1/4-ounce Diamond Shad in chrome with a blue back or in chrome with a black back. One of the problems with catching white bass on crankbaits is that the white bass bite so viciously they’ll tear up your hooks. Always check your hooks, and replace them as often as they become dull or bent. Many times you’ll catch two white bass at a time on the same bait.

Sometimes the white bass will be biting so furiously that they’ll muddy-up the water, when they’re holding in shallow water. At other times, they’ll school around rock piles and hold in deeper water. Now, if the white bass are holding in water deeper than 6 feet, I’ll cast a Series 5 crankbait. With the Series 5, I fish the same colors as I do with the Series 3, but I can get the Series 5 down 10-feet deep in the water. There are numbers of people who don’t know that white bass will feed on the bottom. But I’ll crank the Series 5 down to the bottom, have the bill of the bait dig in the bottom, stop the bait, let it float up and then start it again. That’s when the white bass will attack. If you throw that Series 5 out and keep it on a steady retrieve, you won’t ever get a bite. But if you dig it into the bottom and use a stop-start retrieve, they white bass will devour it.

Question: How big are these white bass you’re catching, Roger?

Stegall: We almost broke the state record here at Pickwick Lake a couple of years ago with a 4-pound, 6-ounce white bass. We catch a lot of white bass that will weigh 2- to 3-1/2-pounds each. We catch an occasional 4 pounder, which is really heavy for a white bass. Another lure I catch white bass on really well is a Strike King Sand Blaster, a lead-headed tailspinner. The Sand Blaster’s main advantage is that it’s a very-heavy lure, so I can cast it a country mile. If I hold my rod tip high and reel fast, I can fish it in shallow water. If I drop my rod tip and slow down my retreat, I can fish it in deep water.

If the white bass come up and start feeding on the surface, and they are farther away from your boat than you can cast to them with a Series 3 or a Series 5 crankbait, you can pick up that Sand Blaster and usually cast it to the white bass. I start off reeling it really fast when I see them on the surface, kill the bait when I get to the school, reel it really fast again and then kill the bait once more. Usually the white bass will take the Sand Blaster when I kill it. These lures are the ones I use and the ways I catch white bass in the fall on Pickwick and other lakes I fish.

Question: What pound-test line are you using?

Stegall: I’m casting 10- and 12-pound-test Shakespeare Supreme Super Smooth Line on baitcasting tackle with a medium-action rod. I think the limit is 50-fish per person, but so far, I’ve never had three people in the boat with me who wanted to clean 150 white bass. However, I do have a man and his son who fish with me every year in the fall, and they always keep a 48-quart ice chest full of white bass from their day of fishing. Last year, they had 51 fish, and that was all they could pack into the ice chest and still close the lid. If you want to have a lot of fishing action and more importantly, plenty of catching action at this time of year, you can’t beat fishing for white bass. I take many kids, wives and fishermen who just want to catch fish out fishing for white bass in the fall because they can enjoy a lot of action and have a lot of fun with this kind of fishing.

White bass are also good to eat. One of the best ways to cook white bass is to fillet them, cut that red lateral line out of the fillet, put your fillets in an ice chest, cover the fillets with crushed ice, and add enough 7-Up to cover the crushed ice and the fish. Let the fillets soak overnight, and then wash them and cook them the next day. That meat will be as sweet and tender as crappie or bluegill. You can treat saltwater stripers and hybrids the same way. All three of these fish have an oily taste to them, but by removing that lateral line and soaking them in the lemon-lime taste of 7-Up, you may be surprised how good these fish are to eat.

To contact Roger Stegall, call (662) 423-3869, or visit www.fishpickwick.com, or email rogstegall@fishpickwick.com.

Next: Stripers That Will Break Your Line and Your Heart

Contents:

• Part 1: Bet on the White Bass
• Part 2: Stripers That Will Break Your Line and Your Heart
• Part 3: Largemouth Now
• Part 4: What To Do When the Bass Won’t Bite
• Part 5: Lunker Smallmouth – How To Catch Them