Cumberland stripers

[Buchy1210]

Making a trip down next weekend, are the stripers still being caught pulling live boards back in the creeks? With all this rain is there any areas with clear water?

[peter]

Making a trip down next weekend, are the stripers still being caught pulling live boards back in the creeks? With all this rain is there any areas with clear water?

Last weekend I was fishing more like halfway up the creek. Others were talking about fishing around the mouths of the creeks.

[Buchy1210]

Last weekend I was fishing more like halfway up the creek. Others were talking about fishing around the mouths of the creeks.

Good deal. How was the water clarity? Thinking of heading towards wolf creek and fishing the points of creeks pulling shad on boards.

[peter]

I was fishing on the lower end. Had baits 14' to surface. Trying to put board as close to bank as possible which is not easy with all the vegetation. Water was moderately stained. Surface temp 59

[peter]

Last Friday caught real nice ones with sinkers at 18' (down lines mainly) on main lake flats. Seventy feet of water give or take twenty feet.

Saturday caught all undersized fish at the same depth doing the same thing. Those little ones did put up a nice fight though. They all seem to be putting up a real good fight lately.

The weekend of April 25 caught nice ones in the morning doing the same thing but the magic depth was 25'. One of the fish was on a board free line with 25' out so not sure of the depth of the strike. Did not catch anything on free line boards near the surface.

It can be hard to pull a board on the bank with the drift, underwater trees and above water trees.

Bait has been easy to catch. Last weekend caught bait as soon as the near full moon went behind the tree tops right near the ramp in 30' of water.

Good luck if you go.

[peter]

Here is an interesting report from Jared Harmon from April 15th.

http://www.fishin.com/forums2/conten...ort-april-6-15

[peter]

A report from earlier this week from a friend.

Steve and I fished Sunday night and Monday night. Put in about 11 PM each night. Had a big full moon. We only fished the low end of the lake and didn't go very far. Thought I had trouble with my trolling motor Sunday night and ended up sculling the boat all night. Haven't done that in 40 years. I thought that it was the switch.

We only caught 5 stripers total and no walleyes. Two of the stripers were 28+ inches and the rest smaller down to 18 inches. None on top. Only heard about 4 on the bank. Some bait working but no big masses. There was a lot of drift especially Monday night with no wind. Those coves on the south side from the island to Guffey were full of drift all the way across them. We didn't run but just putted around.

Lost a lot of sleep but ready to try again. Were about 25 trailers in the lot Sunday night when we started out and we were the last to leave at about 4 AM Monday morning. The Corp had a work barge cleaning up drift trash and logs along the dam, and in the ramp cove Sunday and Monday. They did a good job along the dam and in the ramp area. They left acres of wood chips on the water and Monday night I was worried about the water pump on the motor pulling in some chips because we had to run through acres of them.

[headbanger]

We fished Tuesday and Wednesday and limited both days in under 4 hours all while releasing the pregnant females, there were three of us so do the math. We were pulling planers with free lines all the way down to thirty feet and were catching nice fish on all of the boards. Best two days of fishing I've ever had at Cumberland. Can't speak to the night bite but can certainly tell you that they were absolutely on fire during the day.