Patoka stripers??

[slowride]

I have a different opinion on the stripers, patoka has plenty of stripes/wipers. Ive accidently hooked into them bass fishing deep and also trolling for crappie in the spring, nice fish 15lb range. I was told from a guide on lake cumberland that in order for stripers to thrive their has to be 100 miles of open water shoreline? Hope this helps

[raporter]

I have a different opinion on the stripers, patoka has plenty of stripes/wipers. Ive accidently hooked into them bass fishing deep and also trolling for crappie in the spring, nice fish 15lb range. I was told from a guide on lake cumberland that in order for stripers to thrive their has to be 100 miles of open water shoreline? Hope this helps

Biggest I have seen was 17# but have heard of fish over 20#. We only have stripers and white bass here in Patoka according to our biologist. No wipers. We have caught several this year while trolling for crappies but none were of any size. These were all caught shallow near weedlines. Pretty sure you would have to go deeper to find the larger ones.

[Moose1am]

Do you guys use a canon ball type down rigger to fish for those stripers?

They sell those mini down riggers at some of the sporting goods stores in Evansville, IN

D_I_C_K_S Sporting Goods Store carries these and I am not sure if Gander Mountain has them or not.

But I would think that during the summer months you would have to get down to around 18ft deep (right above the summer thermocline) to catch the stripers. They like to roam the deeper waters on the main lake to eat the Gizzard Shad that frequent the main lake deeper waters during the summer months. But I only read this and have not confirmed it myself.

But If I wanted to catch some big stripers I would be fishing the Old Patoka River Channel near the dam area and from there out to the main lakes two islands. There is a lot of open water to fish with a down rigger system. I would be able to troll that area of the lake quickly with the down riggers.

The area near the dam is over 50 ft deep in the old river channel. And if there is some water flowing though the dam there would be some current in the depths.