Originally Posted by OutInKy
I just came off the water a couple hours ago. Water was 69 degrees out in the middle of the main lake. As far as the striper go, I'm just trying to figure them out this year and have been out of the game all summer. I have located what I believe to be striper, and have been on good arches for 3 weekends now and all we've come up with is 1 short, 1 hybrid striper, and a blue cat. Fish were in 70' of water and holding around 50' for the past couple of weekends. The past 2 days they've moved out to 85', holding 60' to 70'....but I honestly don't even know if they're striper. The sonar arches sure look nice though!
As far as bait, I've heard a few say it's been tough recently. Saturday morning I managed to catch 2 alewives before sunrise caught up with me. But, I'm still figuring out how/where to catch bait also.
Anyone care to share what the striper are doing right now? I assume they will begin heading into creek arms before too long, but do they do so in schools, or do they begin to scatter? I have yet to find a big school in the past couple weeks, so maybe I'm just not in the right spot yet.
If they ever come to the surface maybe the gulls will point me in the right direction.
Thanks for posting that. It is good information to know.
As far as bait right now, if you can't get alewives under a light, go up the creek after daylight to where the channel is about 10 to 20 feet deep and look for bait-fish flipping and look on your graph.
It will mostly be threadfins. If you see a single flip that's a little larger splash try to get over there and throw where you saw that flip. You could end up with the net full of gizzards.
As far as when the fish head up the creek I believe it has more to do with temperature than anything. Maybe some will go up there at 65. Definitely fish up there at 60°. I don't think they all go up there at the same time. Right now my guess would be that there are still on the main lake and maybe some up into the creek a bit. Maybe some of the back? Speculation. I haven't been down there in 2 months.
Keep in mind the fish got whacked out this year as a result of very little oxygen at the depths they were holding. That was maybe mid to late September? This could be part of your problem with seeing arches and not catching anything.
It has been my experience that striper fishing this time year is just plain difficult. Once they are in the back of the creeks I believe it is much easier. Problem is right after that happens it gets cold and windy and the holidays are on but there are some nice days you can get out.
Good luck and keep at it.
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