Night Striper Bite

[bassmaster]

Anyone doing any good? I'm gonna try and go one night early this week. Was just wondering if they were busting any. I will post report when I go.
Thanks,
Tim
bassmaster

[apb]

Its been sporatic for me this year. I've got at least one almost every time out, but had to work for them. Got my first topwater one on Friday night. Everything else has been subsurface. Hopefully we'll get some stable conditions for the rest of May and actually get some decent action. Watch the debris if you go!

Andrew

[bassmaster]

Thanks Andrew. I will post a report when I get to go.
Thanks again,
Tim
bassmaster

[Duayne]

The mature stripers I caught this past weekend were showing signs of spawn. Of course not all of them are doing the same thing at the same time, but most will either be running into or out of creeks during the spawn. The mature fish also seemed to be very spread out which is another good spawn sign. Bottom fishing worked for me but they may be back to feeding heavily for post spawn by as early as this coming weekend. I don't know if I was seeing the beginning, middle or end of it. If they are still in spawn, and you want to cast, I would recommend spoons bounced off the softer bottoms heading into the creeks. The smaller fish were actively feeding and will continue to do so. My guess is they will be there at night as well if the bait is still up. More and more bait seems to be moving off the shores but is still up high and on the surface. Bass were popping bait well off the shore. Caught two walley sub surface close to rocky points. Don't know more about the night bite as I didn't cast very long.

[mhall]

Nice report Duayne, this sounds real familiar. Andrew and I noticed the bass busting bait way off shore as well and couldn't make anything bite but Dinks. This has been one very strange year for the night bite. To much water, waaaaaay to much water and they are pulling the bottom off of the lake every time we have been. That poor lake hasn't been stable in weeks now, storm after storm after storm, and by the time the lake does stabilize the night bite will be over, oh well, might have to bag it and fish live bait for awhile during the day.

[Duayne]

And more rain is on the way...

[nvgibson]

there are hybrids in cumberland lake a striper will have no breaks in the lines on the sides ,hydbrids have huge breaks in the lines ive caught alot of them on lajke cumberland,the next time u go out get a free ketucky hunting and fishuing guide they show the difference between the 2 in there ,once u see it theres no doubt it becomes very obvious,the fish are shaped completely different to ,the striper is streamlined and the hybrid are lil pigs but the hybrids dont get very big,gl to all on the lake this year

[Duayne]

There are not officially hybrids in Cumberland and stripers can have broken lines. Striper growth was stunted for a few years. Those fish are not as long as they normally would be but are now thicker so they can appear to look similar to hybrids. The rule is to treat all stripers\hybrids as stripers.

[peter]

Caught this this morning at LC. looks like a hybrid or one big "A" white bass.

[kentuckykingfisher]

Caught this this morning at LC. looks like a hybrid or one big "A" white bass.

It really does look like a hybrid on the left. I didn't think they was in LC. Are there white bass in the lake? I ask because I thought about the possibility of cross breeding because fish and wildlife don't stock hybrids in the lake... Right? Probably dumb question to ask but I know nothing about Cumberland and I'm kinda curious.

[stripernut1]

there are definitely hybrids in cumberland, we catch them fairly regularly. i along with a couple others have caught them, photographed them and posted them on here before. long story short they were "accidentally" stocked a few years ago. they are not regularly stocked, the hybrid population that is currently present is residual from the accidental stocking.
even though they are absolutely 100% hybrids and different state regulations apply concerning minimum size limits , local conservation officers met year before last to determine how to approach the "hybrid vs striper" determination and it was decided that the true hybrids would also need to meet the current 22 inch minimum size limit as well as the fish counting towards the creel limit of 2 per person per day.

[kentuckykingfisher]

there are definitely hybrids in cumberland, we catch them fairly regularly. i along with a couple others have caught them, photographed them and posted them on here before. long story short they were "accidentally" stocked a few years ago. they are not regularly stocked, the hybrid population that is currently present is residual from the accidental stocking.
even though they are absolutely 100% hybrids and different state regulations apply concerning minimum size limits , local conservation officers met year before last to determine how to approach the "hybrid vs striper" determination and it was decided that the true hybrids would also need to meet the current 22 inch minimum size limit as well as the fish counting towards the creel limit of 2 per person per day.

Thanks for clearing that up stripernut. I've just always heard people say there wasn't hybrids in there but that picture peter posted clearly showed a difference. I believe that an accidental stocking happened, it's not surprising at all. Again thanks for your post.