White Bass & Striper Masterclass with Bill Butts

Let’s face it: for mid-American anglers, all those saltwater magazines are nothing more than a big bait and switch. From reading articles about massive “silver torpedos,” most anglers sadly turn to anemic and washed out stocker-sized rainbow trout. If you’re an angler in flyover country, Bill Butts has the answer to your problems. Tune in and listen close, because Bill’s going to give you what you always wanted: a real fish on the line.

Podcast Excerpt: “From a tacke and fly standpoint, when you go after these fish, there’s two basic categories, without getting too technical. That is when you’ve got fish, let’s say they’re white bass, small hybrids, small hybrids from one pound up to five or seven pounds, I think you’re looking at a six- to seven-weight rod. A good seven is going to handle those fish and the flies you cast for them very, very well. You need to have a floating or intermediate line, something that is going to stay up close to the surface. I use a type III sink-tip, that’s 12-15 feet of sinking tip. I can’t tell you how important it is to have that line. I use it 80-90% of the time. With about four feet of leader. But then you also need — for the deeper rivers, lakes, and holes — something that is longer and heavier. That would be a 250-grain line, approximately, that’s going to sink even quicker than that type III.”