Any freshwater striper fishermen out there?

[pman7]

It's still good around here (NW Arkansas) and I'm having a fun year with my new/old 16' Ouachita. I'm predominately a lazy troller with 2 downriggers but I love to catch stripers.

Nothing too big yet this year, 13lb max, but I've caught at least one everytime I've fished. That's a record for me.

Just curious if there are any others out there or are there any striper message boards you could point me to.

 

[jtexas]

Re: Any freshwater striper fishermen out there?

you gotta see www.sixoldgeezers.com'

I usually get up to Texoma a couple or three times a year (except none yet this year). slabs mostly, sassy shad, live shad ever once in a while. I haven't broke into double digits yet but it's just a matter of time.

mostly I make do with hybrids & white bass on lakes closer to home.

 

[POLINGPOWER]

Re: Any freshwater striper fishermen out there?

i use to be a riverrat (BEHIND THE DAMS) caught lots of stripers matter of fact i quit bass fishing, start chasing stripers all the time , even bought a falcon boat for the lake fishing also lived in the d/fw area lot of great lake for striper & hybreds

 

[SpinnerBait_Nut]

Re: Any freshwater striper fishermen out there?

Stripers on Cumberland and the Hollow.
Hybirds at my local lake.
All on a smithwick rattln' rouge.

Oh yea, plenty of smallies on the Hollow with the float-n-fly.

 

[pman7]

Re: Any freshwater striper fishermen out there?

Thanks for the feedback and the oldgeezers site. I'd been on that site once but somehow missed their message board. I'd gotten side tracked to the "other boards" link and missed their board. I wish Beaver Lake had a board like that to keep track of the fish. That sounded a bit like possibly a few guides intermixed giving fish locations.

I've been tied up and haven't got out the last 2 weeks but plan to next week. The only shad I've been able to catch were small so I've been using artificial. I haven't been able to find any fish hitting when I'm up the river arms in the morning so I just putter around the lake until I find the biggest schools of shad. Then it's just a matter of keeping an eye on the shad until they start raising toward the surface and then the stripers are biting for a while. Haven't seen much surface activity nor have I seen any birds but like I said this info is two weeks old.

The oldgeezer site has day to day reports of activity on Texoma. Must be nice.

 

[Grits]

Re: Any freshwater striper fishermen out there?

pman7

A great live striper bait is a Black Salty. They are produced right here in Arkansas, by Anderson Minnow Farms, just west of Lonoke. I will bet there is someone carrying them in NWA. Check out the website, www.blacksalty.com' .
You may call Anderson and ask if anyone sells them in your area. Anderson will ship them FedEx.

Grits

 

[pman7]

Re: Any freshwater striper fishermen out there?

Thanks Grits, I see there's a dealer in Rogers. I'll probably give them a try sometime. That'd be great in the summer when the fish are deep, up on the damn end of Beaver.

 

[Paul DuLaney]

Re: Any freshwater striper fishermen out there?

Have been going to Norris Lake in Tennessee and had good luck for years. Troll with down riggers and planner boards on my Taho Q3. Live bate has all most always worked best. The small es and walleye also give a person a thrill at this lake.

 

[Rockchalk]

Re: Any freshwater striper fishermen out there?

I got hooked on stripped bass fishing last July at Beaver. We took a guide out to see how to do it. We caught a bunch of them including one I got that weighed 31#. We got a few the next day on our own but nothing over 10#. I've been dying to go back ever since. I hope to make a few trips down there next year. The only way I've found to see how the current conditions are is by going to the guide we used web site.

http://www.beaverfeverguides.com/index.cfm'

Its worth a trip going out with these guys just to see how they do it... they really have it figured out. Unfortunately you need BIG shad to do it like they do and catching them is harder then catching the strippers. They get theirs from a lake in Oklahoma and bring them over.

 

[pman7]

Re: Any freshwater striper fishermen out there?

I got hooked on stripped bass fishing last July at Beaver. We took a guide out to see how to do it. We caught a bunch of them including one I got that weighed 31#. We got a few the next day on our own but nothing over 10#. I've been dying to go back ever since. I hope to make a few trips down there next year. The only way I've found to see how the current conditions are is by going to the guide we used web site.

http://www.beaverfeverguides.com/index.cfm'

Its worth a trip going out with these guys just to see how they do it... they really have it figured out. Unfortunately you need BIG shad to do it like they do and catching them is harder then catching the strippers. They get theirs from a lake in Oklahoma and bring them over.

Sometimes the best tactic for stripers on Beaver is locating the guides. They do keep track of where the fish are.

But the guides quite commonly are not the best to share the water with. On Beaver they tend to have a prima donna attitude by pretty much acting as if they own a territory. But yet when a regular fisherman finds a productive area, I've seen guides motor in and set down right in front of a troller. It has happened to me.

I know it's their business and they're under significant pressure to produce when charging 300 to 600 for a fishing trip but I don't think they have the right to disturb or cause other fishermen to always get out of their way.

I've never crossed paths with guides other than on Beaver and they're not all like I've described but I've come across enough rotten apples to first expect nonsense when I'm close to one and I remain a bit uneasy until they prove otherwise.

Catching stripers in July is something I haven't worked on yet. Keeping shad alive and keeping them frisky in the summer is possibly as much of a challenge and as expensive as regularly catching them in Oklahoma.

I think I'm going to give it a shot next summer in the deep water up towards the dam but I imagine I'll probably have many more days of whiffing than I will of catching fish. It's quite the learning process and like you said, the sucessful guides that can catch them year round have tons of knowledge and the equipment to do the job right.

 

[Rockchalk]

Re: Any freshwater striper fishermen out there?

Pman

It doesn?t surprise me you say that about the guides at Beaver. I kind of got that feeling when we were on their boat.

I?ve been on a bunch of guided trips all over the country and that sort of behavior isn?t uncommon. I was on a boat in Key West with a guide who literally ran up to another boat and started yelling at them because they were working ?his GPS numbers?? not fun. We did catch some BIG grouper and snapper though.

FYI? I don?t know the lake all that well but we fished in July very near the launch at the Lost Bridge area? probably about a mile out from the launch. Our guide said they?d been catching fish there all summer. We just slow trolled shad hooked under the chin. We had a few weighted rigs but most rigs were just a hook and a shad. The boat we fished in ran about a dozen lines?. they just trolled looking for shad and bottom contour. The bite was REALLY early? basically just at sun rise. We fished the same area on our own trolling 4 baits and had some success. We fished in the evening to sunset? all the guides were off the water by then. You might give that area a try in the summer.

I really like that Black Salty Shad option posted above. I?ll do that for sure next time we go?. either order them for delivery or go to Rogers. I don?t have the time to figure out how to catch shad at Beaver and from what I hear it?s difficult to catch them and nearly impossible to keep them alive very long. To me it would be worth the expense just to buy a bunch of them.