White bass

[TIBBZZ]

Went to the Jordan River the other day only caught one white bass using worms.Anyone no if white bass boil like wipers or strippers?Because the one caught was in a little pool of slack water and I casted into a disturbance on top of the water that resembled a wiper boil on Willard.
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[Old_Coot]

[font "Comic Sans MS"][size 2]I've been told that the "boil" action is a characteristic that wipers get from their striper parrent. Lake Powell is well known for their striper "boils". That's no to say that whites won't.[/size][/font]
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[TubeDude]

[cool]All members of the predatory "rock fish" family will herd baitfish to the top and hammer the snot out of them. Down here in Arizona, Lake Plaesant has a good white bass population and there are several times a year when "whitie" fans chase the boils. This happens a lot about this time of year, when the young-of-the-year threadfin shad cruise in huge schools. Whites and "schoolie sized" LMB rove around the lake looking for these "meatballs" and really froth the surface while gorging.

We have another cousin of the striper down here too...the yellow bass. They also find shad schools a good reason to hit the top.

In the lower Provo River, I used to lay waste to foraging white bass that ran upstream to feed on the newly hatched carp minnows each spring. On a couple of occasions I followed splashing schools upstream for a long ways, casting a gold Mepps spinner into the commotion and hooking fish on almost every cast.

In the Jordan, they could be eating carp or the spawn of several different other species...including their own. Anything they can corner and chomp is on the menu. Of course regular chubs and shiners are a possibility too, but I have never seen too many in the Jordan.

This taste for minnows is a good reason to harvest and freeze a bunch early in the year. Later, when all the fry of the carp and other fish have grown beyond easy eating for the whites, a thawed minnow from the freezer often has a lot of appeal to otherwise hungry fish.
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[hustler898]

Where on the jordan have you been fishing? Ive dipped a line in the big J a few days in the past week over at 7300 s in the hopes of finding some white bass. I caught a few carp and a chanel cat but no white bass.
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[FlyFishingMoose]

Early this summer we hit the white bass just below the pumphouse between Utah lake and the River Jordan.
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[cat_man]

The white bass would boil a lot more in Utah Lake, but I think the problem is that their really isn't a base of forage fish there. They can eat the young of any species, especially carp or chubs, however by fall most are too big to eat for the average Utah Lake/Jordan River white bass. If there were shad or something like that in Utah Lake, then I think that the white bass would herd them much as the stripers/wipers do. I would love to see Utah Lake stocked with some sort of shad or other forage fish to give the bass, walleye and catfish populations a boost. I doubt it will happen, for one huge reason: The June Sucker. There is fear that the shad would compete with young June Suckers for food, further endangering them. Maybe someday the June Suckers will die out completely, then Utah Lake can be managed for sport fish a little better.
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[TubeDude]

[cool]The other factor is the clarity of the water. For sight feeders like stripers, wipers, white bass, LMB and smallies, they do much better where the water is clear. Without good visibility, they cannot see to herd schools of baitfish together for a community feed.

There is another good reason why shad are not a part of the forage base in Utah Lake. It is too shallow. Most shad species need water deep enough to escape the cold of winter. The gizzard shad in Willard is hardier to cold temps than the threadfin, but still would not likely survive the Utah Lake conditions, even without predators.

Utah Lake is a tough one to manage for everybody. Several species have proven capable of sustaining populations by cannibalizing their own young and the young of others. But, as cat_man observed, some of these youngsters grow fast enough that they are only available as a food source for a brief part of the year.

I have always been amazed at the biomass that exists in that shallow and murky pond. In almost any other part of the country, it would be a lifeless scumhole. But, strangely enough, the carp that made it the muddy mess it is today are also one of the main items on the grocery list of the other fishes. Go figure.
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