Striper Crash Course?

[jlmustain]

I know this sounds na�ve of me, but I respect y'all's opinions.

Would someone mind to write out a little crash course in striper fishing?

1. Is Percy a good place?
2. If so, where should I go?
3. Line test?
4. Lure/bait?
5. Presentation?
6. Time of day?
7. Is this a good time of year for them?
8. Anything else that would be pertinent.

 

[Crow Terminator]

Can't help on 1 & 2.

3. Your average striper is going to be around 8-10 pounds. Don't go over kill with line, but you don't want to go too little on it either in case you hook into a 20+ pounder. They fight until there is nothing left in 'em anyway. With that said...we use 15# quite a bit, and have landed 25-30 pound fish on it.


4. It depends. I like live bait myself...gizzard shad or yellow tails. The more alive they are, the better. I like using the ones that are 4-7 inches long. Hook them through the top under the spine, just in front of the dorsal fin or through the nose. A lot of guys catch them on those Red Fin plugs at certain times of the yr.

5. With the live bait, we just drift it by a technique something like cat fisherman use for drifting. If there is no current...we don't do as good. Just drift the river channel ledges and particularly, the bends. You might drift a ledge for a half mile and never get bit, then suddenly run through a school. We typically take a 1 or 1.5 oz egg sinker, and peg it about 15" above the hook. Then use a circle hook on the bottom. You drop it off the side of the boat, until it hits bottom, then crank it up about 4-5 turns of the reel, and then just put it in a rod holder, or hold on to it. Let the current do the work.

6. It's a current thing. If they are pulling current, that's the time to be there.

7. They catch a lot of big fish in the winter time....and they really seem to get cranking during the summer for our pattern. The hotter the days...the more people pull their A.C. units...and the more power they generate = more current.

8. With the live shad thing...a striper will come and nearly jerk the rod out of your hand...and then be gone. That's your cue to get ready. It's almost like they come and deliver a "stun" hit for the shad, and then come gobble it up. We catch a lot of catfish doing it that way...and they normally will come peck at the shad before it finally just loads up on it. There's a big difference between the way a cat hits and a striper. As soon as you hook a striper, they are trying to get to the next county.

 

[bowtechgump]

Absolutely awesome crash course, Crow!!!

 

[jlmustain]

Thanks, Crow! I'll give it a shot soon.

 

[SilverFox]

I haven't fished for them here... But in SC I did from time to time. I'll add that if you can't get fresh bait, they will hit cut bait. You'll catch more cats usually but the rockfish will eat it too.

We did more casting buck tails to them than anything. There we used white with a little deep green in them. They also love to hit a big spook when they are busting shad. When they are active about anything with work... Don't overlook a 5 or 6 inch swimbait if they are busting shad close by. If you find them schooled up, a big spoon you can cast or vertically fished will work also. If you have any of the bigger rattletraps, the 3/4 or 1 oz size, they also work well when they are schooling.

 

[Crow Terminator]

Here's a few extra, free of charge:

I will add that NOISE is a big part too. They are very spooky fish. So try not to be dropping things in the boat, etc. This also comes into play for weekend fishing...particularly in the summer time. If there is a lot of boat traffic...it seems like they just shut down.

Another lesson we learned...was to stay away from braided line. We had the idea that braid would be easy to use, stronger, and all that good stuff. But for whatever reason they just don't like a shad attached to braid vs one to mono. We've actually done this several times when we would all be in the boat, using the same exact thing...and the only difference would be my reel still had regular mono line on it...vs the others that had braid...and I would get 3-4 times as many bites as the other rods would...so we tried running braid with a mono leader...and that helped tremendously...but when it came time to replace line, we just spool them all with mono now, and don't even bother with braid.


I've never fished it myself, but the Cumberland River is a large striper mecca. I've seen more 20+ pound fish caught off of it than I have anywhere else in recent years. You can find videos of guys using planer boards, etc to troll/drift really close to the banks, and catching really big stripers. Melton Hill lake use to be good for it, but you don't hear about it as much anymore.

One last thing...and this is about keeping them alive. As stated...they will give it everything they've got in a fight. Some times by the time you get them to the boat, they just come up on their side, almost dead. They are a really easy to kill fish...but we've learned a good way of keeping them alive. The trick is to put them back in the water and hold onto them with your thumb still in their mouth on their lip. Then just work them back and forth beside the boat. It may take several minutes...or they may do it shortly after...but when they get ready to go, they will bite down on your thumb and then you can let them go...and they'll swim away. If you just throw them back in the water, a lot of times they will just float there and not go back down...and die. Since we started working them beside the boat like that, I don't think we've had a single one die out of a crapload that we have caught and released. The other way of just landing them, snapping a pic, and tossing them back in the water, usually resulted in half of them not going back down, and eventually dying.

 

[jlmustain]

Thanks for that. I had no idea and would've probably killed some without that last bit of info'.

 

[bowtechgump]

In SC you cannot fish for them during the hotter months of the year. this is due to lower oxygen levels in the lake and their mortality rate diminishing after the fight.
Anything one can do to go the extra mile to ensure these guys get a fair deal is great!

 

[Inkstainz]

Great info there CT