Cumberland stripers?

[cumberlandguy1]

I didn't mean to take a stab at any of the guides...I was just curious to how often it happens to them. As a matter of fact, one of the best guides on the lake taught me what to look for, how to find them, and then how to get them to bite. If you want to learn something about stripers, I would highly recommend Jeff Burton who works with Nancy Guide Service.

[striperfishin]

I didn't mean to take a stab at any of the guides...I was just curious to how often it happens to them. As a matter of fact, one of the best guides on the lake taught me what to look for, how to find them, and then how to get them to bite. If you want to learn something about stripers, I would highly recommend Jeff Burton who works with Nancy Guide Service.

so how do u find them on those TOUGH days. WHen the sun comes up, you cant graph a fish all day and it gets very difficult unless u bottom fish.

[cumberlandguy1]

I've never had to bottom fish.....I can usually find them...even if it takes me a couple of hours!

[mhall]

I've never had to bottom fish.....I can usually find them...even if it takes me a couple of hours!

Dude if you can catch fish like that all the time you can make a killing guiding. I mean to never have zero or blanked days, I know of no one that can say that.

[cumberlandguy1]

I didn't say never...LOL...I've had 2. As for guiding, I know people that do it and they still have full time jobs as well. Let's see, rate $300. Let's say you fish 200 days a year = 60,000 before taxes, gas, lost lures,boat maintenance, and $27,600 a year for a slip. Plus the you have to look at some the customers who are real pains in the butt even if you are catching fish. I make just a touch ouver $100k a year now so why switch? No thanks

[cumberlandguy1]

But I would take you fishing for free!

[mhall]

But I would take you fishing for free!

Watch it, I just might take you up on that one.

[cumberlandguy1]

Hey, just let me know....I had a typo with the boat slip...LOL...I meant 2700 a year. I plan on hitting the lake Friday. Hope the water doesn't muddy up. That's when I struggle.

[Chubminnow]

Cumberlandguy - Looking forward to you bringing us back a report after you hit the lake Friday. The extended outlook for the weather forecast looks like we might start seeing a warming trend sometime towards the middle to end of next week (16th - 20th). What I'm hoping for is prime-time hits the following week after (23rd - 27th). It's been unseasonably cool for the past two weeks which has kept the water cooler, under 55 degree's at the surface as of this post....Of course it takes Cumberland a while to warm up anyway, but what do you consider to be the prime water temperature range for Stripers?

[cumberlandguy1]

The funny thing is that I fished all of December and January with the water temp down in the low 40's....and still managed to limit out. Just look for water that is a couple of degrees warmer than everything else....and hang on.

[apb]

...what do you consider to be the prime water temperature range for Stripers?

Around 64 is the optimal range. They'll do fine to the upper 40's, then slow down. They prefer temps below 70 and larger ones cannot take 70 degrees for any length of time.

Andrew

[cumberlandguy1]

Just got in and put the boat up. Went down the lake to my favorite fishing hole only to find 3 guide boats pulling about 7 boards each with live shad (guess somebody saw us Sunday LOL)....so we weaved our way through them and went a hundred yards or so below them. I figure that they probably had some upset clients as there were only 2 of us in the boat and we caught and released 7 stripers. Of course once we started catching fish, guess what? We could have tossed rocks in their boats! But the fish didn't seem to want live shad today as they only had 2 between them. We capped our day off with a double and didn't even fish anymore after that. Probably could have caught a dozen or so if we had stayed longer. I have plenty of fish in the freezer, so right now I'm trying to catch another one to mount. The stripers are on fire right now...come and get them. The guides were still there after we left, so I hoped they picked up some fish for their clients. (my tweaks are working)