Cumberland striper report

[vmky]

Fished Cumberland last Monday thru Friday. Started out slow on Monday and Tuesday. Marked lots of striper on the bottom at 80' but couldn't get them to bite. Tried live bait and jigging spoons. Wednesday was a banner day. Limited out in an hour and a half fishing 70' deep over 100' of water on live bait. Caught several more the same way on Thursday and Friday. Bite was pretty much over by 8:30-9am. Some schools showing up in main lake cuts after 9 am. Caught a few to finish out a limit several days. Met stripernut at the launch ramp Sunday evening. Glad to finally put a face to the name. Thanks for the information and looking forward to seeing you fishing out there sometime.

[adam7456]

Thanks for the report. I'm planning on getting back down there once the fish start to move up, so all these updates are helping monitoring that.

[stripernut1]

Enjoyed meeting you and it was good to talk fishing. Sounds like the fishing went well, pretty sure i saw justins boat a couple times, and maybe yours a time or two. Yep, when you find em ITS ON !!! lots of fun

[Shellkat]

Headed to the big C in the morning for a week of fishing/ camping, hope them stripes are ready to cooperate

[HURRICANEBOB]

Was live bait shiners or shad.

[vmky]

Shiners

[HURRICANEBOB]

Thanks

[peter]

Fished Cumberland last Monday thru Friday. Started out slow on Monday and Tuesday. Marked lots of striper on the bottom at 80' but couldn't get them to bite. Tried live bait and jigging spoons. Wednesday was a banner day. Limited out in an hour and a half fishing 70' deep over 100' of water on live bait. Caught several more the same way on Thursday and Friday. Bite was pretty much over by 8:30-9am. Some schools showing up in main lake cuts after 9 am. Caught a few to finish out a limit several days. Met stripernut at the launch ramp Sunday evening. Glad to finally put a face to the name. Thanks for the information and looking forward to seeing you fishing out there sometime.

Pretty much matches what I experienced. I was honeing in on 70' bottom and fishing near the bottom this past weekend not far from the dam. Got a late start with the rain. Caught a fish after the rain sat about 2pm up by rowena off the bottom in 60-70' of water. The ones I saw were biting very lite on shiners. Lots of the shiners would be skinned a bit when you pulled them up. A nice fellow gave me some gizzards Sunday and some of them would me skinned too. Had two fish in the last two weeks that I did not know were on for an undetermined amount of time. Brought one fish up Sunday hand lining because the fish had silently tangled all the lines. Some fish were being caught between 9 and 10 eastern time.

[JUSTINHALL]

I fished all week with VMKY but in my own boat and had a tough time. VMKY caught more than I did, I never blanked but never got a school to play ball all at once. First time I have been on top of a school up in a cove and seeing them actively diving in and out of the school of shad and not take my bait. Was using shiners and maybe one of those days where shad would have paid off over shiners but they just would not bite the shiner. 3 different days was on a very active school but would touch my shiners.
Stripernut1 you did see me I was out there but not sure what your boat looks like so didn't know it was you if you passed me.
Hopefully the cooler weather will get them going soon, nothing better than some jumps at day light.

[stripernut1]

big change (for me anyway) this morning. i have been hitting the deep deep fish like everybody else for the last month, but i had a couple of my fishing partners "lose" a school that had been 80 feet deep for 3 weeks , they searched the general area and "found" them....in 30 feet of water.
so this morning i decided to look for the shallower schools, didnt take long to find them, 30 feet deep in 45 feet of water, dropped 4 live baits down and immediate hook up on all 4 rods.
hopefully the lethargic , lazy, light hitting fish on the bottom thing will be over soon! boring lol.
checked out 3 schools and found the same results, all had moved shallower. caught 9 total this morning, 0 misses, and 0 lost fish.
not a bad morning

good luck to all

[adam7456]

I was just going to ask what time of year or water temp do the fish start moving up. stripernut1 what water temp were you seeing this morning? These cold nights should be cooling the lake down pretty good. Do the fish always go from that deep shallow that quick?

[stripernut1]

I was just going to ask what time of year or water temp do the fish start moving up. stripernut1 what water temp were you seeing this morning? These cold nights should be cooling the lake down pretty good. Do the fish always go from that deep shallow that quick?

78 before daylight, so the cool nights are affecting to the surface temp. 79.6 at the ramp at 9ish, very bright sun warmed the surface pretty quick.
the fish are pretty much doing what they are supposed to do with cooler temps, the only thing is the more "active" these fish become the more they will move, and in turn be more difficult to keep up with. but hey thats the fun of it, if we wanted "easy" we would go to captain D's.