Striper NON-sense

[Rob1678]

Had the week off and back to work tomorrow. Had 3 days of chasing the stripers st C-land. Went down last Wednesday and Thursday. Fished in Indian and caught 2 and one lost trying to get get him outta my planer board. I was in about 60' of water in the channel edge and catching fish about 45'. I was by myself, unless you can count my beagle! Pulling 8 lines with shiners. Did not start hooking up with fish until after noon both Wed and Thurs. Thursday I caught 7!! Had a great day! Turned them lose and they did fine. It was 23 deg that morning and only got to about 45 in the afternoon. Went back yesterday with 3 other guys and same time, same place , same everything and it was like the dead sea!! It was soo confusing to me and made NO - sense!!! All 3 days I mad marking clouds of bait with stripers hanging out on the edges of the bait. Will try after Christmas! BRW... Duane, thanks for helping me have the best day ever, it was awesome with two rods screaming the drag song at once... Just curious how far they would move in 2 days. We're they just not hungry. I fished from 9-3 and Sunday we only caught 1-26". -Rob1678

[HURRICANEBOB]

Change in weather, low pressure rolling in, will shut them down sometimes. And yes sir, they move on ya.

I've had the opposite thing happen. Fish an area 2 mornings in a row with no hits, go somewhere else that afternoon and they are hitting lines as fast as they go in. Go back to the first area the next day, and they are there now. Your are more patient then me. I tend to run and gun, until I can find the "hot fish".

And I agree, sometimes ya just can't guess what they will do. Lady Luck is always invited Striper fishing with me.

The only constant thing about Stripers, is that they move around a lot.

Congrats on the good days!

[Duayne]

Glad to hear you had your best day ever. There is something about seeing more rods than you can handle bent over that can't be described. LOL Stripers can move very long distances in a day but I don't think that's the case right now unless the conditions change dramatically. It's my opinion that the fish in the upper third of the creeks pretty much stay somewhere in that third unless heavy rains and muddy water push them out. If you saw the bait and the fish, I don't think they moved on you. What does happen is their metabolism slows as the water gets colder and they don't eat as much or as often. With things concentrated in the creeks, the game changes from "where" to "when". Sometimes you just need to be in the right place when they turn on. Sometimes they will feed for a few days then totally shut down for a day. You can sometimes help them turn on by getting them excited. Move something fast in front of one to get a strike and others may follow suit. I know of people banging the side of the boat or slapping a paddle on the water to draw their attention (I can't bring myself to do it but some people swear by it).

Shiners tend to just move along without much motion so I like to move them some if I'm trolling them. Move the boat in an S pattern to get one side to rise and the other side to fall, or even pick up a planer board rod and move the board some. The fish also tend to want to settle close to the bottom if they aren't in a feeding mode so drop a live bait, spoon, jig or flitter bait to the bottom and bring it up fast or jig it hard to get their attention.