Cumberland Striper Report

[peter]

I've been down all week and am heading home today. I've downrigged all week with the early part of the week being very productive. I could literately get a limit in 5 minutes once I was set up, with fish hitting as I was trying to get away from them. By Thursday, though things started to change. I could only find short fish, Friday I did my best to avoid those and only managed some light hits. Yesterday, we had a little success and from conversations with a few of the guides, any success was better than what several of them did.
Peter swung by where we were at early and pointed him to the best wad of bait we saw, which did have some bites on it for us. Maybe he can chime in on what he saw\did.
There are two levels of fish right now. Deep at 68+ and around 45. Only found small ones in that 45 range. I expect things will be on the up swing once this front moves on.

Using shiners

Saturday. Caught one short fish at the spot that Duayne spoke of, one 25" at the dam and another by the bathrooms at the dam ramp on sat. Very windy. Luck was more in control than me. Downlines 55-70.

Sunday much nicer day. Fished a bit and looked around by the dam. Did not see all that much but what appeared to be an inactive fish here and there. Went up the north bank a bit and found a decent number of active fish together moving around within ten feet of the bottom in 70 feet of water. Pretty good number of fish. After I reorganized the boat I stayed around and watched them for a while. They remained in the same place. They hit super hard too. Saturday we had one on and did nor even know it until we reeled it in and could actually see it. Seemed like one of those stressed fished of the last few years. Very odd....but man did they hit hard Sunday. It was like a slap in the face. Time to wake up!