Cumberland striper report

[tglass]

Well i am back from Cumberland now and thought i would give a report on how i did. I was down and fished Sat. and Sun. And did ok but not what i hoped for. I fished out of Conley Bottoms and that was fun in the morning on sat. with the bass tournament. I know that some guys don't know about using lights to catch bait but on Sat. morning i was throwing my net under my light which i put out 2 and when i was emptying my net a guy fishing the tournament came in and parked his bass boat right under my light that i was getting ready to throw on. Needless to say i was a little pissed but oh well. I already had quite a bit of bait but i was catching extra for my uncle's buddy. Anyway back to the report. Bait was a little tough but took 6 throws on Sat. and about 10 on Sun. Seemed like the bait was either really big or very small. Went out and pulled boards on Sat. to start and caught a 30" fish right away. We then had a down rod go shortly after but the hook turned into the bait so didn't hook up. A little later had a planer go and same thing hook stuck in the bait. Had on more about a hour later pull a down rod down and let go. Just killed the bait. All fish in the early morning until about 10am were up around 20 to 30 ft. Then as the sun got up higher i started marking everything around 40ft. I decided to drop the baits deeper with no luck. I ended up going over to a point and bottom fishing and picked up 2 more fish both being over 30". One was probably around 35". We went back in for lunch and then came back out later in the evening and went back to bottom fishing. No hits, but started to see shad coming up and right after i told my uncle that fish may come up boom there they were. I reeled in all the rods and by the time we got off the bank they went down. I know he does not know any better but my uncle was killing me by banging stuff all around in my boat but kinda hard to tell him to be quiet. We had the fish come up 2 more times but we were not in range of them and they did not stay up long. On the other hand my uncle's friend had the come up right next to him both times and never got a fish on. Rookies. He had a couple hits on baits but nothing in the boat. Ok on to sunday. We went back out to the same area and sure enough the fish were up higher early again. i caught a short fish before we even got all the rods out. Then had another hit and then caught a drum on a down rod. That was all within 10 min. We then went over where the fish came up the night before and where we caught our first fish Sat. but nothing on the graph. We pulled around for another hour and nothing. So after looking a little farther back in the creek i went back to the bottom fishing spot and bam fish on within a couple minutes. Lost the fish about 10ft. from the boat. Rebaited that pole and threw back out to the same spot and took off as soon as i put the pole in the holder. That was another 12 to 14 pound fish. Then about 15 min. later i caught one on a rod thrown down the bank. That was the smallest keeper fish we had and it was 27". We had another one on a little after that but got the sinker hung in the rocks and had to break off. We fished about another hour and my uncle had to get going back home. I was going to go back out later or go to dale hollow on monday morning but ended up not doing it because my boat is a pain to do alone. i did not do as well as i wanted to but i guess we did not have that bad of a trip after reading other reports. guess i will try to get them next time.

[tglass]

Also know a guy that had a 6 1/4lb largemouth and a 4 1/2 largemouth on friday. i am pretty sure he caught them on live bait though. He was way up in the very back of the creek. Took pictures and let em go.

[PRO V LE]

Nice report, thanks.
Dave.

[fishincreek]

So you fished midlake? Graph much bait close to main channels or spend more time in the creeks?

[buddy]

Great report!

I fished Sat. pulling boards around the mid-part of Wolfe Creek until lunch and then bottom fish in the afternoon. Great weather, but no luck fishing.

A question I have--Catching your bait. Can you explain more. I puchase my bait but would love to learn to catch my own. I have bought a net but no luck catching my own.

[tglass]

i stayed in the creeks the whole weekend. I know a guide there that caught some in the creeks and caught some bottom fishing out in the main lake also. I know that on Sun. when we were going in around noon there was hundreds of gulls out in the main lake and yes i did graph a bunch of bait.

[tglass]

Well i will give you the secret to catching your own bait. You have to check first to see if the people at the dock will let you put out a light. If they will then put it out at dark and don't throw on it until early in the morning. I usually get up around 4am to go out and start throwing. The trick is to have a good net. You have to really step up and pay for one. i have a Calusa net that is 8ft. radius and 1/2in. mesh. I also have a bait buster net that works fine too that is a 7ft. net same mesh size. Now in hte spring when the bait is easy you don't have to go that deep, but right now i tie an extra 20 ft. rope on my cast net so it will get down closer to 50ft. When you do throw you also get much more bait if you turn your light out once your net drops down out of sight. Rule is the deeper the bait the longer you let your net sink before turning out your light. Once you pull your net closed and start bringing it up turn your light back on so you can make another throw. You might want to wait a few minutes. This is about all i can tell you about it. You have to just experiment a little with it. If you want to start with a really decent net you can buy a bait buster for around $70 from catch-n-bait on the web. The Calusa is a better net but i got mine for $140 from a guy in florida and the same net sells for $189 from bass pro. Hope this helps.

Tommy