Trolling question

[lslite]

What lures and rigging are working best for white bass trolling at Livingston ? Thinking of taking the kids up this weekend.Any advice will be appreciated.

[bueyescowboy]

heddon is the name brand big silver things.... get silver, maybe couple..maybe white or two ...get several nothin worse than getting in the fish and lose all your lures. then trail that with a pet spoon...(both found at walmart but go to one near you livingston's walmart is probably out) trail about 18 inches.....some use jet divers...they look like planes..but i like silver heddon's. i like tubes too.....tubes are pvc but i haven't found them and i am trying to make some ...been having problems with them diving though.

[shadslinger]

I use jet divers because they do not pull harder than a white bass like hellbenders do,lol. But sometimes they want a hookless hellbender with a pet spoon 18" behind it and nothin else.
I like to have 10', 20' and 30' jet divers ( depth, indicated on the side of the diver) that way when I see them on the depth finder I can match the depth with the diver. I also use crappie jigs behind the diver, cheap and usually work just as well as a spoon.
Trolling on the south or east side of pine island will usually get some fish.

[Whitey]

Islite,

A couple of pointers. Buy more pet spoons than you think you need. Get all three colors of hellbenders. Some days they like silver, others it's white and most of the time on Conroe we have the best luck on the striper model. Make sure your leader between the hellbender and pet spoon is lighter than the line your fishing with (i.e. mainline = 12 lbs, leader should be 8-10 lbs.). Pet spoons are $2.00, hellbenders are $5.00. If you hang up, it's cheaper to lose a pet than a hellbender.

I troll all the time and run three rods out of the boat at one time. I use 2 hell/pets and then run a pinklady/hellpet on a short line closest to the boat. The pink lady dives the deepest with the shortest amount of line, it almost always runs true and trips & surfaces when you get a fish. On the hellpet combos, I tie the pet spoon to the back at 24-30" then tie a crappie jig to the front where the hook use to be on a 10" leader. Sometimes you can catch doubles on the same rig.

Your looking for changes in bottom structure humps, ridges, etc...) but as a rule you need to be 15 feet or deeper. There exceptions to this but you will usually be dragging bottom or get hung up in anything less than 15'. A couple of good spots to try are the 190 road bed. You can see it on you map and it's easily visible on a depthfinder. Also try just north of the island.

Let us know how you do.

[lslite]

Thanks guys,I'll post up our results if we make it this weekend.

[Guyj]

[QUOTE=bueyescowboy]heddon is the name brand big silver things.... get silver, maybe couple..maybe white or two ...get several nothin worse than getting in the fish and lose all your lures. then trail that with a pet spoon

Mudbugs are much better than hellbenders but they are hard to find. Hellbenders require some tweaking with the pliers to get them to dive properly sometimes. Never tried the jet divers but seen alot of people using them.

I prefer the hookless mudbug or hellbender because I think it catches the fishes attention just before that petspoon comes along. The only purpose of a jet diver, mudbug, hellbender is to make that petspoon dive down to where the bass are sitting beneath those schools of shad. Find the shad and you will find the whitebass too. Look for droppoffs along the channels and humps near the flats. Typically we catch them between 10 to 15 feet of water.

[shadslinger]

The divers work great and I went to them because I got frustrated with surfacing hellbenders that refused to tweak. The divers come in different depths too, a trolled hellbender on 15lb line about 100' behind the boat dives about 14' deep, you can get divers in 10', 20' and 30' depths. The trick is to troll just above the fish, whites and stripers like to rise to the bait. I usuallt start with two 10' divers and one 20' and one 30' untill I find which depth they want and change evrybody over to it. I do keep some "Benders" in the tackle box because some days that's all they want.

[bueyescowboy]

hey i found some silver jets.....well dad did. i think at academy....but i haven't used them....like i said i am kinda parsal to heddon(hellbenders). been fishin pretty regular last week probably head up there today...but the fishin has been off in my area...i am sure because of the rain. but even with it kinda off i ve been picking up about 15 whites in about an hour. thats why i stick to heddon's.