Finding Consistent Action After the Spawn

If you’re new to downrigging, confidence comes with practice. Do your mapwork before hitting the lake, and experiment in high percentage areas. Main-lake points, junctions between creek channels and main river channels, riprapped dam faces, large humps, and community holes known for holding white bass are all good places to start. At the beginning, avoid undulating bottoms, which force you to make frequent depth adjustments. About the only places downriggers do not excel is in weeds and standing timber.

Tackle and Equipment

For my downrigging, I use Cannon Easi-Troll manually controlled units, along with Church Tackle’s Adjustable Flex Clip and Adjustable Stacker Line Releases. Most manufacturers offer rather short leaders on releases, but I prefer a leader of about 22 inches. A longer release provides more vertical travel for fish that are hooked but which do not trip your release. Greater vertical travel equates to greater movement telegraphed to the rod tip for you to observe.

A long leader also allows your lure (assuming you are not using a diving lure) to travel just slightly higher than the downrigger weight does, so you can adjust your downrigger weight up or down to the exact depth at which you’re seeing fish returns on sonar. It also allows your presentation to travel just slightly above the eye level of those fish, so they are sure to see your offering.

The best rod for white bass downrigging is a light-action 7- to 8-footer with a slow action, bending smoothly from tip to butt. Less expensive fiberglass rods excel in this application. A casting reel with a smooth, quality drag is a must. I spool up with 12- to 15-pound-test monofilament in clear, smoke, or dull green. My favorite combo is an Eagle Claw Starfire SF407 7-foot casting rod, matched with an Abu Garcia Ambassadeur 5500C3 reel loaded with 12- to 15-pound Ande mono in clear or dull green.

Start with a small, shad-imitating lure. My favorite is the Luhr Jensen Pet Spoon, but I’m always prepared to match the size of the shad the white bass are feeding on with other lures. Some other good options are the Yo-Zuri Pins Minnow, the Storm ThunderStick Jr., and the out-of-production Storm ThinFin. Experiment with the many other smaller, shad-imitating minnowbaits and spoons available. Checking disgorged stomach contents of the fish helps match lures to forage.

Get Rigging

To start, head to deep, open water. Put your boat in gear and motor slowly forward. Lower your weight to 20 to 25 feet (no lure attached, yet) and then adjust your sonar unit’s depth range and sensitivity so that the ’rigger weight shows on your sonar screen. Because the weight tracks directly under your boat, the weight’s sonar return appears as a fairly straight horizontal line. Once the weight consistently shows on sonar, execute a slow turn to the left, then to the right. You can see how the weight rises when on the outside of your turn and how it descends on the inside of a turn due to centrifugal force.