Striper Report: Cumberland

[apb]

If you like casting rather than pulling bait, night time is the time to go. December through May. Winter time it will be a subsurface bite. Bucktails, slivers, bombers, deep running cranks are your baits. Creeks and red clay banks are the locations. May is traditionally the topwater time. Wake a red fin or jointed thunder stick. Mouths of the creeks and main lake, bluff walls where you hear the alewifes spawning on the banks.

Andrew

[Fishin is life]

I landed one back in Indian about 3 weeks ago that was in the 25lb range and another that was 7-8lbs....We were minnow fishing for smallmouth but saw a lot of striper activity....Were about halfway back or so just before you get to the marina

[Mean Morone]

I don't fish at night because the fishing is thought to be better. It really isn't. I like it because of the adventure. I like the thought of fishing a Lake the size of LC and knowing you are the only knuckleheads out there. I've been on that lake when the temp was in the low teens and the wind was blowing. Got to love winter fishing at night! We might fish most of the night and only get one or two bites, but to us it's the adventure. Man I love it!

[HURRICANEBOB]

I don't fish at night because the fishing is thought to be better. It really isn't. I like it because of the adventure. I like the thought of fishing a Lake the size of LC and knowing you are the only knuckleheads out there. I've been on that lake when the temp was in the low teens and the wind was blowing. Got to love winter fishing at night! We might fish most of the night and only get one or two bites, but to us it's the adventure. Man I love it!

I hear ya. No problem finding parking near the ramp and the ramp has little or no traffic to compete with. I like it best with dead calm wind at night, and when you just start to get the sea steam going on. A little drifting low fog adds to the fun. Sunrises with a little fog on Cumberland can be an awesome sight. The capper to a night trip is how good hot coffee, eggs, bacon, and toast tastes after being out all night.

[Mean Morone]

Hbob brings up a good point on the fog. When you start seeing those wispy looking spirals of steam coming off the lake, you better start heading back unless you want to spend the entire night on the lake. My buddy and I were fishing the mouth of Greasy and started seeing these cool looking small tornadoes coming off the water. Instead of calling it a night and heading back in, we decided to go up in the creek. The fog rolled in so thick that we spent the next 4 or 5 hours trying to find our way out of there. Of course GPS would have helped. We didn't have it at the time. One other time we got fogged in the back of Caney and finally worked our way out to the main lake. My buddy was driving and made a right turn out of the mouth of Wolf and was headed for the lights of what he thought was Jamestown Marina. I look to the left and see the glow of lights. I yell at him and ask him where he is going and he tells me "to Jamestown Marina". I point to the left and ask him what all those lights are. Sure enough, If he had continued going straight he was headed for those cliff walls.

[HURRICANEBOB]

I learned it the hard way in May 97, fishing the banks at 10 pm. Saw the tornadoes, and the wife said we ought go in. I told here I wanted one more hour. In about 30 minutes, I couldn't see the bank anymore. So we started to idle out headed for what I thought was a run to Allegator 2 from the first turn in Wolfe. We spent the next 3 hours turning circles in the fog and finding banks between what is now Cave Springs, and the mouth of Wolfe. By accident, we found the dock at Pleasant Hill, at about 1:30 in the morning, and ended up tying up there, in the fog and 50 degree temperatures till about 7 am in the morning. The wife spent all night huddled up in a sleeping bag with a tarp tied around her to try to stay warm and dry. Man it took me years to live that down.

[pct]

I almost hit the cliff walls at Indian one night in the fog. Scared me to death. Even with GPS, I go VERY Slow and I watch the GPS and my buddy looks out in front...