Whitebass?

[koWALLEYEski]

I have never heard of a whitebass. WHat is it like

[huntingislife]

Well,

It's very similar to a crappie in size, appearance and taste. It is white with gray stripes on the sides. They congregate in very large schools. You can catch a million in a day if you wanted to. I spent the summer trying to catch walleyes while trying to keep them off my hook on the missouri river. Their population seems to be growing everywhere.

[iffwalleyes]

Yep huntingislife that is a perfect discription. You can find them in Devils Lake and like mentioned the Missouri River system. They are fun to catch since they can get bigger than crappies so they put up a heck of a fight.

[fisherdog19]

They look like small striped bass and get to about 4lbs. Silver in color with black horizontal lines running lengthwise down the fish that are parallel to eachother. Very sharp gill plates, even more so than a walleye, but you can lip them with out a problem. I think Devils Lake also has wipers or hybrid stripers as some people call them, but am unsure. They are a cross between the whitebass and the striped bass. They are also sterile so they will not produce offspring, that is why many states stock them as a gamefish. They get upwards of 20lbs. I used to catch all three of the fish I mentioned when I lived in Oklagoma. Striped bass can weigh in excess of 60lbs.

Fisherdog

[koWALLEYEski]

Do people ever just fish for them or are they a menace? Just wondering if they were worth fishing besides a good fight. Thanks for all the info.

[deadstick]

Here's a pic of one caught on Devils Lake last summer, they fight like mad. They're edible, but not the best.

[koWALLEYEski]

is that considered a large fish deadstick?

[fisherdog19]

They are not the greatest to eat, some have a dark band in the meat. Pound for pound they are one of the best fighting freshwater fish I have caught, they are broad like gils and crappies, but get bigger and fight harder. You can compare them, effort wise, to a smallmouth bass. When I was in Oklahoma, I can remember wrecking the gears on a spinning reel in one day of white bass fishing.

Fisherdog

[koWALLEYEski]

That sounds like fun. So are these fish in a lot of lakes in ND or just because of the Missouri? Are there any in MN lakes?

[deadstick]

It's a decent sized one, in "walleye-terms", that picture is about a 4-5 lb. walleye (nice, but not a whopper). In the spring, you can go and catch as many as you want until your arm is tired. I even caught one on a plain jighead with no bait once.