by John Jefferson

Largemouth bass were the prized game fish as I was growing up in East Texas.

Before all the lakes were created, catfish and sunfish were more prevalent. But I’d never heard of white bass.

Then I moved to Austin. I read the outdoor column in the American Statesman, by the late Russell Tinsley. My earliest white bass knowledge came from his column.

He wrote it for 27 years along with 11 outdoor books. He made white bass interesting. He became my mentor, and we fished together for years.

a 25-fish white bass limit caught in Central Texas using a small jig with a feathered body. They’re better cooked if filleted, rolled in Bisquick, salt and peppered, and fried.
(Photo and recipe by John Jefferson)

Austin was a great place for learning about whites, too. They spend most of their lives in cool, deep water. The Colorado River lakes chain provided that. Each spring, whites swim upstream to spawn in flowing water. The new dams helped there. And Hill Country streams naturally supplied spawning water — provided it rained. This is currently happening over the eastern two-thirds of Texas.

The Llano, Pedernales, Colorado, Guadalupe, and San Gabriel rivers and the countless Hill Country creeks were ideal springtime spawning waters … if it rained.

During droughts, some fish still released eggs on windswept areas below dams.

Tinsley once wrote that if Lake Buchanan’s white bass could be laid end to end, people could walk across it without getting their feet wet.
We had good rains one year and a good friend, Billy Harrell, told me we should check out the white bass fishing in a feeder arm of Lake Travis near Jonestown. We hiked along the creek to fish. Most of that is private property, now. We fished past sundown. Overhanging limbs made fishing hard. A big rock a couple of feet from the bank was clear and an easy jump, so I took a leap.

I barely had room to flip my yellow, 1/32nd ounce Marabou jig into the current. Still no bites. Billy hollered he was ready to leave. I wasn’t.
I could barely see my jig hit the water. As I reeled in my line, I felt a bump. I flipped the jig back to where I thought it had hit something.

Something hit it harder this time. And rocks don’t pull back! Excitedly, I reeled in a 12-inch white bass! I yelled, ”I got one!” I put it on the stringer, wishing I had brought my camera.

I flipped the jig back into the current. And I’ll stop here since I’m at the column’s word limit. And the story gets repetitious anyway. I stood on that rock and caught 24 more whites, about the same size. See attached photo.

Billy came, thinking I was lying. I told him I needed help since I had 300 – inches of fish on the stringer and didn’t think I could jump back to shore with them. He didn’t sympathize with me. He DID at least grab the stringer before the fish flipped it into the water when I slung it over to shore.

Over the next couple of years, I caught the 25-white bass limit twice in that same area.

JJ