Taylorsville lake Question

Went to taylorsville lake with a couple buddies sunday. We caught a bunch of Stripers/Whites/Hybrid bass. Since there is a size limit on stripers, and we didnt want to get in trouble, we threw alot of them back. What is the easiest way to tell the difference between the species? Going by the kentucky fish and wildlife fishing book wasnt getting us very far. How do you guys tell the difference? By the way we probably caught 100 of these fish over the day. We had a flippin blast. Are there even stripers in Taylorsville?

Anyway on to the report for the whole day.

We rented a boat at the marina, and started fishing up in beach creek. We started off looking for cats and tossing bass baits while we waited for the pigs to bite. Well they never did, and after an hour we packed up and moved. I was just playing around and stuck a trolling bait on one of my rods while we moved and before long I got hung up on the ground. When we stopped we noticed alot of fish popping the surface, and I decided to toss an inline spinner on an ultra light over in the mess, and first cast into it, I got nailed by one of those bass. From then on we were chasing those bass around destroying them. Caught a bunch of large bluegill also. Apparently the Bluegill on T-ville are big this year because of the floods, is what the marina guy told us. We caught many hand sized gills. towards the afternoon, the bass bite had tapered off so we went to old reliable, worms under bobbers. First cast I had towards a mud bank, and a channel cat blasted me. Probably only weighed a pound, but was a blast to catch on the ultra-light rig. We ended up catching 4 catfish right at the end of the day (had to have the boat back by 6pm) and 1 freshwater drum. Caught several largemouth bass but none of them hit the 15 inch limit.

i have trolled tville probaly 20 times and i all iever caught was hybrids no stripers but man they get big i hooked 1 one time and killed the motor and thought i was snaged for sure after tugging for a sec it took off man that was one hel of a fight it probally weighed around 15lbs i took it home and cooked half of it for dinner for 6 ppl and it tasted like mud we all threw it away i didnt know about the mud veins in the big ones the hybrids have more of a higher humped back and smaller mouths than strippers

All that Taylorsville lake has in it are Hybrid Stripers & White Bass .... NO Stripers !! And YES ... if you intend to cook/eat them ... remove all the red meat off the sides (fillet them) !! That goes for White Bass, too !! They'll have a much better taste, and won't have that strong "fish" (mud?) taste to them.

Creel limit is 15/person/day ... no size limit, except that no more than 5 of the 15 can be longer than 15"

... pappy

I caught 5 hybrids today....first time ever trolling. In regards to the red meat....seems like half the filet is red meat. Is this normal? I don't have much and if I trim it off, I may as well toss the rest. :confused:

[QUOTE=KYCatfish;458216]I caught 5 hybrids today....first time ever trolling. In regards to the red meat....seems like half the filet is red meat. Is this normal? I don't have much and if I trim it off, I may as well toss the rest. :confused:[/QUOTE]

That's usually relative to the size of the fish. But, yeah ... try & get as much red out as possible, still leaving a fillet big enough to fool with. The "red" meat is generally just a layer over the side fillet ... so don't think you have to cut the red out by cutting out the whole center section of the fillet. Slice it off in layers if you have to ... and don't expect to get ALL of it off.

I've heard that soaking the fillets in milk will help diminish the heavy taste of whatever little red meat is left on the fillets.

And remember ... we ain't talking about Crappie or Bluegills here. We're talking Hybrids, and they're going to be a stronger tasting fish, even without the "red meat".

... pappy

[QUOTE=KYCatfish;458216]I caught 5 hybrids today....first time ever trolling. In regards to the red meat....seems like half the filet is red meat. Is this normal? I don't have much and if I trim it off, I may as well toss the rest. :confused:[/QUOTE]

You could always just release them alive and hope to see them next time......

The easiest way to tell the difference between a hybrid and stripped bass is the hybrid will have pronounced BROKEN lines. Check this picture out, the white bass is on the top, stripped bass in the middle and the hybrid of the two on the bottom. Notice the the disconnected lines on the hybrid
[URL]http://www.stripers247.com/images/hybrid_difference.jpg[/URL]

I should add, that it is easy to tell the difference between a white bass and a hybrid by the coloring. A hybrid will have a very dark back while a white bass is very light.

All that said, it can be hard to tell the difference between the three in juveniles, but in that case you'd be throwing them back anyways.

I caught and filleted some hybrids a few days ago. I didn't bother with cutting out the red meat. They tasted just fine. I fried them with a catfish and some bluegills, and I couldnt tell that much of a difference between them all. I dont think I will bother with getting rid of the red meat for a hybrid anymore. On a related note, my filleting skills are getting better.

When we catch big hybrids and stripers, I always try to cut out any red meat on the fish. I use a electric fillet knife, so it's best if you leave a little bit of meat between your fillet and the skin. That will eleminate alot of the red meat. Then cut the main red strip out in a v shape and you wont loose much meat. Try them grilled with a little lemon. They are tasty that way.

The only lake in Kentucky that has Stripers is Cumberland. All other lakes have Hrybrids, White Bass or the combination of the two.

[QUOTE=Cobra_Joe;460194]The only lake in Kentucky that has Stripers is Cumberland. All other lakes have Hrybrids, White Bass or the combination of the two.[/QUOTE]

I'm pretty sure ky lake has stripers.

[QUOTE=creekrock;460205]I'm pretty sure ky lake has stripers.[/QUOTE]

Don't think/know if they're in the "lake" ... but, they are caught below the dam (Tenn River, which makes up Ky Lake).

They ARE in some of the other lakes, along the chain of lakes that are dammed up sections of the Tenn River ... so it is "feasible" that they could have "locked thru" or survived being flushed thru the turbines. But, if they were/are present ... there's not enough to warrant having guides that specifically target them (which is why I doubt them being IN the lake, itself).

... pappy