Cumberland winter stripes

[stripernut1]

i caught 2 keeper stripers and 5 big smallmouth on monday in 3 hours and had one more miss. i know of another boat (duaynes buddy) that had 2 stripes and several misses monday also. all my hits were very soft and tentative. both of us were using live alewives.
it will continue to be tough for a while with the floods coming in over the next few days and then the temps drop...again. will the "REAL SPRING" please stand up? lol

[BassHawk78]

Hey bsg2121,

LC can be a daunting place this time of year and the fishing can sometimes be as frustrating as the 40 degree temperature swings we have seen in recent weeks. Better times are just around the corner. My only advice when your struggling for 3+ days would be to try dynamite, or follow Stripernut1 and Duayne around and hope to pick up some of their scraps!

[bsg2121]

Hey bsg2121,

LC can be a daunting place this time of year and the fishing can sometimes be as frustrating as the 40 degree temperature swings we have seen in recent weeks. Better times are just around the corner. My only advice when your struggling for 3+ days would be to try dynamite, or follow Stripernut1 and Duayne around and hope to pick up some of their scraps!

Ha. Thx. Yeah i have had some zeros before but i have to admit this one ranks towards the top. I feel like my approach may be a bit one dimensional and probably works 75% of the time. Sometimes i think about getting a guide or even a couple different guides just to see what else i can pick up on and add some knowledge and ideas to my approach.

[Longdrive]

A few years back we had a guide refer to, "Tourist Minners".
Anything other than live kicking alwieves, taken from the same body of water we were going to fish. I think that if you were fishing in the ocean, and it was live eels or nothing, you would fish eels. Whatever incredibly high percentage of the yearly diet of these fish are shad of a particular size, likely makes anything else they eat a mistake.

[stripernut1]

it would be difficult to guess what the difference might have been between what i was doing and what you were doing. it might have been something subtle , or it could have been in fact the alewives that made the difference, ive seen it over and over in the past, but its hard to say. i would like to point out i consider 2 stripes in 3 hours to be VERY slow, almost painfully slow, if it wouldnt have been for the smallies i would have probably went home. and the difference could have been the stripes just happened to find me out of blind luck.

p.s. for some stupid, unknown reason i threw the net 3 times this morning and caught 1 alewive....yep same light i catch about 3 million alewives a year under...so no bait = no trip this morning. ive noticed over the years storms and lightning can really affect the bait and you have to work and change things up to get enough to fish.

on the subject of alewives you mentioned they die pretty easily on the hook and in "the bucket". if alewives are dying on the hook and its not late summer hot water, you are pretty much stressing them to the point they cant take the trauma of being on a hook. ive said it before and i will say it again, keeping alewives alive and keeping alewives LIVELY are two different things. i have top of the line bait tanks that i use and have formulated the amount of salt, foam off , ammonia neutralizer etc for different water temps through out the year. i am able to very closely monitor and maintain the optimum water temp to hold the maximum of o2 per cf of water.
duayne has spent years perfecting his own homemade tank that does all of the things i mentioned above. they might be homemade but i prefer to call them custom-pro grade.
so it might be a lot to expect trying to keep an alewive LIVELY and healthy in anything less than the optimum environment.
when someone asks me if using alewives really makes that much of a difference my automatic reply is this...."there is a reason why every proffessional guide on the lake uses alewives every day....because they have to catch fish every day".

on any given day one boat fishing with shiners might catch more fish than every other boat, but for the next 99 days i can almost guarantee it wont happen again.
like longdrive said, if you saw steak sandwich and "steak-like" sandwich which one would you order.

i hope this helps some. i dont care to answer questions or help any way i can, dont care a bit.
but you can learn more watching a guide do it in person than i can tell you in writing, its money well spent. if you need names of some fine guides and fine people to boot pm me and i will steer you in the right direction.

[Duayne]

I would use a manufactured tank if someone made the right size in 45-50 gallons. I have a specific place and a tight fit so my home made tank is perfect for it. All the bait tank makers are killing it these days. Extreme Bait Tanks is right here on Lake Cumberland and their tanks are as good as any. I used (still have it) a 50 gallon tall boy from Evolution last fall and it was off the charts performance wise. Evolution uses the new Keep Alive pump in their tanks and this is NOT the same as the old style Keep Alives. I am incorporating many of the tank maker concepts in my tank including the keep alive and filter socks. I've included a pic to show how much oxygen is being delivered to the water in the tank. You can see the air so abundant it's hanging off the sides of the tank. This is with no salt which would make the water more dense and hold even more oxygen.

I can promise you won't do as well unless you take the best care of your bait. I am adding a temp gauge to my tanks as I type this. That way I can monitor temp changes much more quickly. Regulating water temps in the warmer months is critical.

[bsg2121]

Thanks guys. That makes a lot of since when it comes my troubles with keeping lake bait. Honestly i had no idea about how nice a bait tank could be and the details involved. That makes a ton of sense. I really appreciate the time you guys put into your responses thank you.

Stripernut i would be interested in some names of good local guides. We stay at Jamestown so around there would be great. Still trying to figure out when i can get back down this winter but i think it is time to see how other people do it. Understanding the whys would be good for me. If PM is a visitor message i can do that. If not i am not exactly sure how to PM but with look around and try and figure out.

[Duayne]

Look for notifications at the top just to the right of your name. It will go bold when you had messages.

Make sure to let the guide(s) know it's an informational trip versus a just for fun trip. Informational trips take more effort and will probably take a little more time, especially if you are allowed to be hands on. Take notes as soon as you get back. DON'T take notes during. Keep your eyes peeled. For every tip you are given, there are 20 things the guide probably does out of habit and without even thinking that can make or break a bite. Watch how the guide puts the bait net in the tank. It may seem simple, but drawing bait from the tank can stress the bait as fast as anything. The more bait is stressed, the shorter life span they have on the hook. My friends think I am anal, and I am, but I usually limit 10 times faster when I do things myself versus getting "help". Sometimes anal matters, sometimes it doesn't. Being anal about finite details all the time costs nothing.


I am sure the guide would appreciate a better tip if you can swing it. Keep in mind, you are building a relationship with the guide...

[PRO V LE]

Wow! some great advice in this thread from a couple of the best, I will try to add just a little from my "few" times on the lake while Striper fishing. If you ever run across creek chub's aka. Suckers for bait they are so much easier to keep for bait in the live well etc. with no need to baby like alewives and Shad, and the Striper's will like them just fine.
I have started out of Indian Creek many times with the Downriggers and had my limit before I hit the main lake.
Scott aka. Lowerider has taught me that bottom fishing with Skip Jack etc. work's also for both Striper and Cat's.

[luvtohunt]

These other fellas that have given some amazing info seem much more adept at instructing folks on how to keep shad alive but I wanted to put my 2 cents worth in here from a redneck fisherman. I usually net and keep gizzards in the fall and spring to striper fish with and have learned a couple things. Firstly I do have a 30 gallon bait tank that I keep all my shad in. The gizzards we typically fish with are 4-7 inches. About 2 dozen of those is all a 30 gallon tank will care for in my experience. Any more and they get lethargic and what I call red nose. To assist with reduction of bubbles and assist in keeping their slime/scales on I use a couple things, first is pickling salt. I buy a big container and put it in a smaller water tight container and keep it in the boat. For that many shad I start with a third of a cup and add more if the water gets too foamy after a bit. I also use a little bit of coffee creamer in the water. This combo has kept shad alive form sun up to sundown on many days. Its less scientific and less informative but works if you want to redneck it a bit. Again this is fall and spring when water temperature isn't too high so that helps in itself. Haven't tested this in summer time temps or water temps. Good luck fellas!!

[Duayne]

These other fellas that have given some amazing info seem much more adept at instructing folks on how to keep shad alive but I wanted to put my 2 cents worth in here from a redneck fisherman. I usually net and keep gizzards in the fall and spring to striper fish with and have learned a couple things. Firstly I do have a 30 gallon bait tank that I keep all my shad in. The gizzards we typically fish with are 4-7 inches. About 2 dozen of those is all a 30 gallon tank will care for in my experience. Any more and they get lethargic and what I call red nose. To assist with reduction of bubbles and assist in keeping their slime/scales on I use a couple things, first is pickling salt. I buy a big container and put it in a smaller water tight container and keep it in the boat. For that many shad I start with a third of a cup and add more if the water gets too foamy after a bit. I also use a little bit of coffee creamer in the water. This combo has kept shad alive form sun up to sundown on many days. Its less scientific and less informative but works if you want to redneck it a bit. Again this is fall and spring when water temperature isn't too high so that helps in itself. Haven't tested this in summer time temps or water temps. Good luck fellas!!

We use salt as well any time and all the time. I use water softener salt crystals from Lowes. There are other options but clean salt without iodine is the ticket. My general rule is 1.25 cups per 10 gallons. More or less depending on the current lake water quality. I know people that go by taste. Yes, they taste their tank water to see if it has the right amount of salt in it. I also use a cap full of a product called Vanish (link below). Unbelievable stuff. Helps with chlorine and ammonia and helps harden the scales.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Here's the major key. Introduce air bubbles as fine as you can make. I've used a Power bubbles air bubblier for years and they do great. But the air introduced by the danco venturi or the newer keep alive pumps makes bubbles so small you can't make them out. You just see the results. The fine bubbles do a few things. First, it helps introduce dissolved oxygen to the salt water. That's a given. But it also helps pull the bad gasses like carbon dioxide out of the water. The C02 attaches to the air bubbles and is pulled to the surface. Removing those gasses will help (eliminate) that red nose. It's also good to vent your tank. This allows those gasses to escape instead of laying on the water surface.

If you start to see red nose, and you don't have another option to fix the water or keep it from happening, start replacing it with cool fresh water and make sure you add the right amount of salt again. Do a 1/3 at a time or more if you feel you need to. Water changes are hard on bait but leaving them in bad water will kill them. My goal is to do as few or no water changes as possible by making the water they are in the best possible. Keep you bait slightly cooler than the lake water temp at the depth you plan to fish starting at about 60 degrees. Bait can do fine in a 5 degree temp variance (my opinion on the five degrees). Meaning, the lake is 62 degrees at 30 ft, I can keep my bait at 57 degrees. Stripernut or others may vary their rules some but I can promise they have similar rules and treat their water in a consistent manner based on past results for that time of year. Keeping the water as cool as you can means they stress less in the tank and colder water holds oxygen better and releases gasses easier.

[stripernut1]

I would keep 2 dozen gizzards almost always over alewives if the darn things weren't so nasty lol. keeping them is like loaning your tank to the city dump so they can clean the toilets. but make no mistake they are striper candy. plus alewives are sooo much easier for me to catch.
like duayne my personal recipe for salt (water softener pellets) is a cup per 10 gallons of water. my personal experience over the last 40 yrs is gizzards will require a little MORE salt than alewives. also even with a top notch filtration system gizzards still Jack up the water so bad you almost always have to change the water after 8 or so hours.
these are just the things that I'm OCD about as trial and error have forced me into these methods. any method that presents a live bait as a delicious opportunity to a fish is good in my book.