Stripers on Cumberland

[MrPike]

I plan on trolling crank baits and maybe some dollflies on cumberland as soon as the weather stabilizes.

I know I should probably find the bait and graph the stripers and then set depth accordingly but I am brand new to striper fishing and was wondering what a typical depth range would be to target them this time of the year with water temps around 70ish. This way I would even have a clue where to start looking for them on this vast body of water. I am not set up for live shad so I would be trolling shad/minnow imitating baits. Any tips/suggestions would be appreciated.

[aps71285]

Im not sure how to try with artificial or even live at this point. All the info im getting is that with the spawn you might as well try catfishing. Stripers are really really hard to catch right now.

[peter]

This time of year try surface to 20' maybe 30' if you see them down there.
You might try some baits that just go down a few feet, then some that dive about eight feet and so on to deep divers. Baits with a wide wobble work good for me.

[MrPike]

This time of year try surface to 20' maybe 30' if you see them down there.
You might try some baits that just go down a few feet, then some that dive about eight feet and so on to deep divers. Baits with a wide wobble work good for me.

Thank you sir. Should I look in the creeks or main lake?

[peter]

Thank you sir. Should I look in the creeks or main lake?

If it were me I would try the main lake first. Maybe inside the creek mouth too. I would be looking in 30-70 feet of water. If you don't do good there why not try the very back of the creek and go toward the mouth and cover the whole spectrum.

Somebody else may have better info. Possible they are catching them on the eastern end of the lake but I don't go up there. Live bait hasn't done me much good in the last few weeks and I haven't seen anybody trolling lures.
I have thinking about trying it though. When everybody else is zigging, maybe it's time to zag.

If you catch any let us know. I am sure everybody would be very interested.

[headbanger]

I was down last week and fished hard for 5 days straight, we only landed two stripes but both were very nice fish. They were scattered out and still spawning, one of the stripes we caught was full of eggs and as fat as she could be, the other was either male or had already laid her eggs.

Both fish came right around 20' deep on the flats side of main lake creek channels at swings by the canyon walls during early to mid afternoon. They seemed to be focused on the flats side of the creek channel in the mornings then moving up on the walls to coral up bait fish in the afternoon.

The striper fishing was tough and slow but we were blessed with great weather and were catching really nice catfish the entire time on shiners/shad pulled behind planers with 1/2oz sinkers. In case you didn't already know this the catfish that come out of Cumberland are some darn good eating fish.

[peter]

Thanks for the report.

[thunderstorm]

Lots of shad up last night, blowups 11-3 Eastern. Some debris mid lake...careful.