Striper Fishing

Striper Fishing

Striper fishing is much like hunting; they are always on the move. The hunter is always searching --- looking for the sprays of water sent up from the water when they feed on the surface. Many believe the striper to be the strongest fish in the lake to catch. It is commonly seen as the fastest growing segment sport fishing in America. The largest striper ever caught on record was a 78 pound, eight ounce monster, captured by Al McReynolds in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The reel he used was a Penn 710 and lure was a black back 5 1/2 inch silver minnow. Wrought with emotion, he wrote a biography of his experience available on a few online websites. On record, he said it took him four hours to reel in his catch, an incredibly exhausting feat. In a photograph, the fish hangs next to him and it goes from the top of his head almost down to his knees.

Striper Fishing Tips

Striped bass can live in freshwater, but they are traced back to the ocean. In some areas they are reproducing so quickly that they have eliminated shad from underwater environments. The unique water chemistry of one particular lake, Lake Powell in Utah, allows eggs from stripers that settle on the substrate to hatch instead of smother as they would in most nutrient-rich (eutrophic) lakes. With infinite reproduction the limiting factor for striper, survival and growth is available forage. Stripers have deleted shad from the pelagic zone several times. In the late 1980's, there were hardly any shad visible in Powell's waters. That period resulted in the decision to reduce striped bass numbers by angler harvest. Fortunately, enough stripers were eliminated through striper fishing, allowing those remaining to benefit from the improved forage base. In 2004, the average striper weighed three or four pounds and were much healthier than those that preceded it.

Fishing Striper

Striped bass travel in schools, making it much easier to predict location. They often feed as a group. Stripers are fierce competitors when it comes to devouring their food and dart at their prey with a defined quickness. Some baits you may have success with are: they are vulnerable to quick moving baits like rattletraps, minnow-shaped lures, silver and shad-colored jigging spoons, white jigs, and especially top water stick baits. Striper fishing will be successful if you manage to be hovering over a school of them. Stripers consume plankton or hunt near the lake floor for crayfish. When shad are limited, the smelly anchovy or sardine cut bait is much more effective. When shad are plentiful cut bait is ignored in favor of reaction type offerings. In the spring, food is much harder to come by, while unlike the in fall. There is a healthy surplus of food in Lake Powell in the fall.