Jumps striper

[Mean Morone]

Here's a nice striper caught on a Gizz 3 on Team Smack's trip on 12/5-12/7.

[fishhound]

that is a nice striper!

[mhall]

Nice fish Scott......

[Mean Morone]

Thanks. It's amazing how a fish that big would hit such a little lure like the Gizz 3. We didn't start out fishing with Gizz 3's, but after watching stripers boil, tail slap, throw water and just flat out go crazy all around us and not getting a bite on other lures, we decided to give the Gizz 3 a chance. The fishing looks good right now. I'm glad that the draw down hasn't hurt the fishing. It seems that something has changed though. I can't remember seeing so many small threadfins before. Maybe the stripers don't have a choice on forage now. Are Alwives still thick? If the forage base has changed to threadfins, maybe we will see jumps more often. If only they were gizzards.

[mhall]

Ya know Andrew and I were talking about this very thing the other day. I personally like the threadfin as they tend to stay on top or at least higher in the water column, of course Gizzards will to. I think the jump activity has been greater and especially more visable this year due to all the threadfin, and and there has been alot of them. One thing I was totally taken back with though was this fall I did not see hardly any bass jumps on the threadfin pods. What's up with that, normally when they are on top like that in the fall the smalljaws, Spots and largemouth are just beating them to death. I was on the lower end of the lake this year twice in Oct and there was an area between the dam all the way back in Indian and it's trib's that it seemed you could have walked across the lake on threadfin shad pods. I saw nothing more than an occassional single fish or two and a couple of little mini jumps with dink Spots in them hitting these shad. Back in the day I can remember seeing this and would just follow jumps around and catch fish like crazy. I have no idea what was wrong but something wasn't right??? Stripers are doing fantastic though and it's good to see.

[Mean Morone]

One odd thing happened while fishing the jumps. Stripers were working next to shore. I cast next to the bank where the stripers were boiling and had a hit. I notice right away that this isn't a big fish. It's a dink spotted bass. What he was doing in all that mess kinda shocks me. I would think he would have been hiding.

The stripers that we kept had some grey mud that I assume were shad. Those threadfins go right through these stripers. I dont know if that is a good thing or not. It will mean that they need to feed more often, but it might also mean that they aren't getting enough bang for their buck so to speak. Thats why I said it would be nicer if the schools of shad were gizzards. I think gizzard shad would pack more meat on their bones. I think the stripers are working way too hard to catch those threadfins for little return. Here's another striper from the jumps.