Short Strokein' Stripers.

Beautiful day on Cumberland yesturday. Had one fish on about quarter til 7, that went 30.5", it was caught in about 34' off a planer board. Had many more hit but were just short striking it. we would see the rod double and the planer board go under for a second then it all go limp again, reel the bait in and it would be dead missing scales on the sides and have a look on its face that let you know its last seconds were pretty stressful.:eek:
The marks on the sides were not of gar, those are unmistakable.
After talking to a few guides they have said that this is the time of year when the Striper are known for not completely inhaling the bait. Any other Striper fisherman out there having these same sort of problems?
Still a great day on the lake, water was absolutely incredible looking.

Stripers will do that from time to time. What did the markings on the shad look like? Walleye will also hit shad. You'll usually see some teeth marks if it was a Walleye. With stripers, all the scales are gone.

Andrew

Yeah there were definitly no teeth markings on the shad, just a pretty good size area where all the scales were missing.

My best guess would be small mouth. The little savageses hit stuff, I think, even if they don't plan to swallow it, just out of pure meanness. Second guess would be KY Bass, as sometime these guys are real tenative, and often attack stuff bigger than they are.

When this happens to me, of 6 rods out, 1/2 of them get a stinger rig. Stinger hook is a small treble, with short leader, just long enough to allow me to hook one of 3 hooks of the treble in the shads last little bit of his tail. If that doesn not stop teh commotion, the stinger hook comes up to the shad dorsal fin. Lots of times the dorsal hook-up really works, cause when this happens to me, it seems most times the missing scales are midship the shad.