Striper Report

Just finished a week on Cumberland. Fish were very aggressive right at dawn and seemed to scatter earlier and earlier each morning. The larger schools over open water are starting to form. I look for the fish to start gathering more over open water and going deeper soon. Fish caught at 22'-24' 30' 40' and 50'. Both Gizzards and downrigging worked. Using larger baits and going deeper kept the small fish to a min. Prob. 90% of my fish were over 30" with some 38"s and a 42" in the mix. The fish busting over open water aren't worth your time as they are this year's stocking.

Glad you stuck a couple pigs Duayne!

You gotta show me that how to get a week off to myself trick!

Hopefully we can hook-up this fall.

Scott

Step one is to send the kids off to college.. Step two is to want the wife to come but she can't. The rest is up to you.. ;oP
I'm thinking I'll be able to get down a few times before out fall trip. We usually do a fall guy's trip the week before Thanksgiving. I'll give ya as much notice as I can and maybe we can do some catching together..

Thanks for the report.

I fished Sunday am and today am. Only caught 1 keeper each day 29" and 32" and that was at 10-10:30 each day. One was in 60' of water and the other was over the channel on smallish anemic looking shinners.

Marked tons of fish near the bottom off the north bank from Across from Indian up through Roena in 30-to 50 feet of water. They would regularly come up off the bottom to 25' and go back down...so I put some baits at 25. Got tired of watching the fish come up to same level as my bait and returning to the bottom after about twenty minutes so went back over to the channel side. Spent as much time looking around different places on the lake as I did fishing and didn't see any large schools. Fish I saw were scattered and probably moving around. They were definately moving up and down a lot.

Hope they school up soon and able to find them.

Next time you mark fish like that yo-yo a spoon in them.

[QUOTE=peter;424586]Thanks for the report.

I fished Sunday am and today am. Only caught 1 keeper each day 29" and 32" and that was at 10-10:30 each day. One was in 60' of water and the other was over the channel on smallish anemic looking shinners.

Marked tons of fish near the bottom off the north bank from Across from Indian up through Roena in 30-to 50 feet of water. They would regularly come up off the bottom to 25' and go back down...so I put some baits at 25. Got tired of watching the fish come up to same level as my bait and returning to the bottom after about twenty minutes so went back over to the channel side. Spent as much time looking around different places on the lake as I did fishing and didn't see any large schools. Fish I saw were scattered and probably moving around. They were definately moving up and down a lot.

Hope they school up soon and able to find them.[/QUOTE]

They were very picky on bait. Boats sitting right beside us were not getting a thing while our rods were going down with gizzards. Those smaller packs can be like that sometimes. Follow fishincreek's advise. If you don't have a spoon tied on, use a bait rod. Drop it down to the bottom and crank it back up through them. Sometimes, they might not even hit that bait but it can get the pack turned on and they may hit your other baits. I say this, but I tried a spoon and a bait my first day with shiners and only got two smaller fish so I quit and down rigged for some better fish. But the next day may have been different. On my last day I saw a boat of kids using nothing but spoons and they cleaned two fish.

Interesting. I have only done that when I see them sitting on the bottom but that makes since. I actually saw a guide who I know catches a lot of fish jigging large spoons from the bottom to the surface. Some of his customers were doing the same thing with spoons. I thought he was just having a bad day--guess not.

Fished in a striper tournament a few years back this time of year and the guy (guide) that won (Sasser) did so on spoons. Most teams struggled to even catch a 2 fish limit and he had a cooler full of fish. We only managed 1 fish and we caught it on accident while reeling in our lines so yes, you can get a reaction bite on live bait too.

When you see the fish doing that Peter just drop your live bait rig all the way to the bottom and reel up about 20 feet pretty quick and repeat. Your shad/shiner will quickly die but it can still trigger a bite. Might work even better if you tip your bait on a jig head like the walleye guys do instead of using your basic Carolina rig set-up.

Was down a couple weeks ago and saw a lot of guides in the head of a creek catching gizzards - the alewives just die to quick on the hook this time of year to be effective.

What type of spoons ??

[QUOTE=Lowerider;424773]Fished in a striper tournament a few years back this time of year and the guy (guide) that won (Sasser) did so on spoons. Most teams struggled to even catch a 2 fish limit and he had a cooler full of fish. We only managed 1 fish and we caught it on accident while reeling in our lines so yes, you can get a reaction bite on live bait too.

When you see the fish doing that Peter just drop your live bait rig all the way to the bottom and reel up about 20 feet pretty quick and repeat. Your shad/shiner will quickly die but it can still trigger a bite. Might work even better if you tip your bait on a jig head like the walleye guys do instead of using your basic Carolina rig set-up.

Was down a couple weeks ago and saw a lot of guides in the head of a creek catching gizzards - the alewives just die to quick on the hook this time of year to be effective.[/QUOTE]

Lance came in with a cooler full of fish when everyone else was struggling just to get two? I find that very hard to believe! J/K The man has some sort of striper attractant attached to his boat that he's not telling anyone about. It's the only way it can be explained. But even Lance struggled a little last week on a few days. Even with Gizzards, if you weren't there in time, it was over and I think he had a few charters that showed up a little late.