Ohio River Striper Jumps Questions

Some basic patterns for Stripers surface feeding at Cumberland include:
- Apr-Early June, when the shad are mating at the bank at night, top water lures work, with occasional surface jumps in the AM, but very early.
- Oct-Dec, main lake, and creeks see surface action as the Stripers push the juvenile shad either to the backs of the creeks, or pin them to the surface over deeper water as the shad migrate to the main lake.

I'd like to be able to hit Stripers and or Hybrids in the jumps or night time surface feeding anywhere in the Ohio River from McAlpin to say about 5-10 miles south of Brandenburg. I routinely ramp in at Greenwood, Salt, or Brandenburg.

I've have never personally seen Striper or Hybrid jumps in the Ohio, but think it happens, I'm just totally without a clue what the pattern is and where and or during what months.

What advice can you all share? (Please, no recommedations to sell the boat, quit fishing, quit writing here, and take up knitting).

I have never seen or heard of "big" striper jumps like cumberland on the ohio. From what I now they come up into the dam areas in the summer when it gets hot. Once the water cools back down they scatter over a wide area out from the KY bank down the river. (this from Doug Henely KFWD about 7-10 years ago) People catch them in the am with poppers in the boils when they are there. They will also concentrate at warm water discharges down from the dam in real cold weather. I used to fish McAlpine a lot (mornings, evenings and night) and I don't recall ever seeing a single striper out of the water. Long time ago I used to see white bass and skip jack jumpin all ofer the place justback from the boils.

[QUOTE=peter;391090]I have never seen or heard of "big" striper jumps like cumberland on the ohio. From what I now they come up into the dam areas in the summer when it gets hot. Once the water cools back down they scatter over a wide area out from the KY bank down the river. (this from Doug Henely KFWD about 7-10 years ago) People catch them in the am with poppers in the boils when they are there. They will also concentrate at warm water discharges down from the dam in real cold weather. I used to fish McAlpine a lot (mornings, evenings and night) and I don't recall ever seeing a single striper out of the water. Long time ago I used to see white bass and skip jack jumpin all ofer the place justback from the boils.[/QUOTE]

Well in all the years I`ve been fishing the ohio, I`ve never ever seen jumps but behind the hydro and lower gates,,see them bust the top alot up there, thats why i got stuck in that big rain storm 6 weeks ago, was going to leave and they came up..but not in the main river,,

Myself and River Rat have been in the jumps on the main river below greenwood. Myself and mud fish where in there right below the beartraps or lower dam. in both cases we caught fish for about 1hr the fish size was 4-6 #s. and once i got into them between the 2 dams. On all 3 times I was using a 6" stick bait like a rapala top water just giving a jerk letting it move with the follow. And 2 of the 3 was summer the 3rd was winter and colder than hell.

[QUOTE=Boat Bum;391214]Myself and River Rat have been in the jumps on the main river below greenwood. Myself and mud fish where in there right below the beartraps or lower dam. in both cases we caught fish for about 1hr the fish size was 4-6 #s. and once i got into them between the 2 dams. On all 3 times I was using a 6" stick bait like a rapala top water just giving a jerk letting it move with the follow. And 2 of the 3 was summer the 3rd was winter and colder than hell.[/QUOTE]

Generally where below Greenwood? Down as far as upper LGE? or further down closer to Salt River ramp? Just a gerneall area is fine to narrow it down some.

I can't remember the exact year, but about 4 years ago I was on the upper river past 12 mile Island and we caught the whites in a jump by a sandbar close to the Ky shore. They would come up for about 2 minutes and then go back down. We'd wait 5 minutes and back they came. Had a blast that day. The forage they were chasing looked pretty small and we were using in-line spinners, white.

Last year Oct 10th 2008 they were in the jumps at the lower dam ; we killed them on stick baits but they were selective on what they would hit.Were were using a 4 inch stick bait that Walmart had in 1.99 bin .Wished I woulda bought more because they didn't have any this year .There was one particular color that had a gold color and we tore em up on this color .I lost the last one i had a few weeks ago :(

I erks me that Rapala quit making the blue/chrome w/red belly shad rap too.This was a hot bait at Nolin and you can't find them any more .They make one that is similar but not quite the same ...and it doesn't have the same results .

its a blast when you can get em like that :)