Category Archives: Striped Bass and Hybrid Bass Fishing

Do Women Like Saltwater Fishing?

Introducing Women to Saltwater Fishing
from The Fishing Wire

So your wife, girlfriend or daughter wants to try fishing? How you handle her initial experience can make all the difference.

“Daddy, take me fishing,” are four words any fishing father loves to hear from his son, but it has become a more common refrain from daughters-and it’s just as welcomed. In fact, it’s not just daughters showing a greater interest in the sport, but women across the spectrum. That’s a great thing! While fishing is still a male-dominated sport, there has been a steady increase in the number of women fishing alongside men, and a new breed of distaff anglers who get out there and do it on their own.

Everyone likes to catch stripers

Tangling with a big striper takes skills for success, and both men and women need a bit of instruction before they hook up the first time on a fish this size.

How you manage any newcomer’s introduction to fishing will have an effect on their perception of the sport and their desire to become more involved. With that in mind, there is no one better to consult on this subject than Betty Bauman, founder and CEO of Ladies Let’s Go Fishing (LLFG).

Betty started fishing as a child and shares a deep love of the sport. Throughout her fishing experiences, she has moved from cane poles and ponds to saltwater. The knowledge and skill she has acquired along the way, combined with her winning marketing skills and outgoing personality, have helped her share her passion for fishing with other women interested in getting started in the sport. Her award-winning seminar series, which she affectionately calls the “no-yelling school of fishing,” has successfully introduced over 5,000 women to saltwater fishing.

“As an experienced angler, the first thing you have to realize is that fishing is not simple,” said Bauman. “You can’t just throw someone into a fishing situation without first spending time talking, demonstrating and providing them the opportunity to practice a little.”

There is nothing more frustrating than putting a rod and reel in the hands of someone who has never fished before, expecting them to be able to use it on the water. For an experienced angler, the tools of the trade might be old hat. But for someone who has never fished before, something as simple as operating a reel or feeling a bite can be challenging. If you don’t alleviate the potential for frustration from the beginning, novice anglers simply won’t have a good time. And if he or she doesn’t enjoy the initial experience, chances are unlikely you will gain a new fishing buddy.

Teach someone to fish

Saltwater fishing is a different ballgame from freshwater, requiring bigger boats, motors and tackle-but it’s at least equally fascinating with a good teacher or two.
Betty explained that it’s important for the experienced angler to become a teacher. Stop and think about why you go fishing and convey that message as clearly as you can.

“You have to explain the whole world of magic that emerges when you’re fishing, and do your best to paint a picture of that magic before she sets foot on a boat,” she advised.

Tell her about the fish you plan to catch, and show her pictures of them. Tell her about the habitat they live in, what they eat, and how you plan to fish for them. Let her know there is so much more to fishing than the act of fishing itself. There will be opportunities to commune with a wide range of sea life; birds, porpoises, sea turtles and hundreds of species of fish, while you’re out on the water. It broadens the experience and takes some of the emphasis off catching fish.

Spend a little time explaining the various techniques: trolling, casting, jigging, bottom fishing. Don’t just show her a lure or a bait rig and tell her this is what we are going to use. Explain how it works and how to use it. She won’t remember everything – no one can. (You didn’t in the beginning either.) But that’s not important first time out; it’s just a good way of showing her that fishing, like any sport, isn’t as easy as it might look. It requires some education and experience to become proficient.

The time for instruction is before you actually get on the boat to go fishing. Teach her about the tackle you plan on using for her first on-water experience, and let her handle it. Show her how to operate the reel, and explain how it works in conjunction with the rod, not just as a casting tool, but as a fish fighting tool. Explain the principle of the drag system and how it comes into play to prevent the line from breaking when a large fish is hooked.

Anyone would be proud of this striper

Giant stripers like this one don’t come along every day, but when they do, any angler can truly appreciate them.

If you’re using spinning tackle, explain the importance of not reeling when a fish is pulling line off the reel. Teach her how to use the rod to lift and retrieve when fighting a fish. If she will be casting on her first outing, show her how so she understands the basic principles. You should include a practice session with you standing by as her mentor ready with words of encouragement and suggestions on how she can improve when she is doing something wrong. No matter what happens stay cool, keep positive and make the learning experience as pleasant as you possibly can. According to Betty the two most important words to use at times like these, no matter what happens, are “It’s OK.”

If she is not familiar with the boat and how to fish from it, there is that much more to explain. You can also explain how to control a fish at boatside, whether it is to be netted, gaffed or released. Tell her why a lot of fish are released either voluntarily or because of regulations. And be sure to cover the importance of wearing appropriate clothing so she is comfortable for her first fishing experience. Clothing will vary depending on where you are fishing and the time of year, but it is an important topic. Be sure she brings sunglasses and sunscreen, and if there is any chance she might have a predilection for seasickness, simple over-the-counter remedies are cheap insurance for a nice day on the water.

Plan her first fishing experience to appeal to her, not you. Pick a target species that is abundant, easy to find and requires simple skills to catch. Consider keeping the time on the water brief instead of forcing her to get up at sunrise and drag herself back after a ten-hour day on the water.

The most important thing for any newcomer to the sport isn’t catching a big fish or great quantities of fish, it’s catching a fish – period. For that reason, you might consider a morning or afternoon of bottom fishing with simple bait rigs that don’t require a lot of casting. Pick a nice day, anchor on a productive spot, bait her hook, have her drop it to the bottom. Explain what a bite feels like and how to set the hook when she feels one. All she has to do is catch a fish or two, and you’re well on your way to fulfilling all her initial expectations of fishing. From there it’s a matter of moving forward at a pace that is comfortable for her, and seeing how her interest grows. You might be surprised when she starts asking you to teach her more and mentions trying different types of fishing for different species of fish. After all, it is the most addictive of sports whether you’re a man, woman or child.

If you’d like to learn more about Betty Bauman and her educational seminars for women go to www.ladiesletsgofishing.com.

Why Do Sport and Commercial Fishermen Differ On Striped Bass Management?

Sport, commercial fishermen differ over striped bass options

Decline in population raises concerns over how much and how quickly to reduce the harvest.

By Karl Blankenship, Editor
Bay Journal
www.bayjournal.com
from The Fishing Wire

Striped Bass

The striped bass population along the East Coast has been declining in the last decade. (Dave Harp)

For years, striped bass were a textbook example of successful fishery management.

After a dramatic population crash in the early 1980s, a painful harvest moratorium was put in place. As hoped, the population rebounded. By 1995, it was declared “recovered” – and even then the population continued to climb.

By the early 2000s, commercial fishermen and recreational anglers were seeing more large striped bass than at any time in recent memory.

Fast forward another decade, to 2014, and the picture is starkly different. The spawning population is at about the same level it was in 1995, when it was declared recovered, but instead of trending upward, it’s been declining for a decade.

It is expected to drop below the “recovered” threshold level next year.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates the management of migratory fish species and includes representatives from all East Coast states, is weighing options that range from a 25 percent harvest reduction next year to phasing in a smaller, 7 percent annual reduction over three years – or even doing nothing at all.

“This is the premier fisheries management success story,” said John M.âR. Bull, commissioner of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. “I don’t think anybody wants to jeopardize that success.”

But, views about what the ASMFC should do to maintain that success when it meets in late October – and even the seriousness of the current situation – vary widely.

Some groups representing recreational anglers are leading the charge for aggressive, and quick, action.

Tony Friedrich, executive director of the Coastal Conservation Association in Maryland, said he supports a 25 percent reduction, but only because the ASMFC’s options don’t include a greater cut.

The fish “are in a lot of trouble,” he said, citing angler surveys showing that interactions with fish – basically how often they catch a striped bass – have fallen 75 percent since 2006.

“If you talk to a lot of people on the East Coast, they are up in arms,” Friedrich said. “They want to go a step beyond 25 percent.”

In comments to the ASMFC, the group Stripers Forever contends “the signs of diminishing abundance have been ignored for years.” It calls for a 25 percent harvest reduction effective next year, but said even that is “too little too late.”

On the other hand, Billy Rice, a commercial fisherman who has worked 46 years on the Potomac River and Maryland tributaries, said striped bass will soon become more abundant in the Bay as a result of a strong reproduction in 2011. Fish born that year will soon reach legal size in the Chesapeake, and shortly thereafter along the coast.

“We need to keep a close eye on it, but I wouldn’t even come close to calling it a crisis,” said Rice, who is a member of both the Potomac River Fishery Commission and an advisory panel to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

Absorbing a 25 percent reduction in a single year, he said, “would virtually cripple our commercial fishing industry.”

Rice contends that, given time, striped bass will bounce back, and that it’s not realistic to think that any stock can be consistently maintained at record-high levels. “Fish naturally go through cycles, no matter how well you manage them,” he said. “We are not going to stop the natural cycle that has been going on since the beginning of time.”

The different perspectives reflect, in part, longstanding tension between recreational and commercial interests, which compete for the same fish.

Commercial fishermen, equipped with large boats, nets and often decades of individual and community knowledge, are efficient. They typically can catch their given quota despite competition from recreational anglers, as long as the stock is at a healthy level.

Recreational fishermen do best when fish are very abundant. The fish are more easily found, and the commercial quota typically takes a smaller portion of the available population. As the population declines, recreational anglers with fishing lines are less efficient than watermen with nets, and have a harder time finding fish – even if the stock is still considered to be at a sustainable level.

“When abundance is down, the recreational anglers are the ones whose catch is going to go down the most,” said Bill Goldsborough, director of fisheries for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “By the same token, when abundance is up, their catch goes up the most. The recreational catch is tied very closely to abundance.”

That’s reflected in ASMFC figures which show spikes in recreational harvests when the striped bass population hit its peak in the early 2000s. In fact, the estimated dead discards from the recreational fishery along the coast – those fish that are caught and released, but die anyway (about 9 percent of the released fish) – exceeded the entire commercial catch as recently as 2006.

As abundance has declined, though, the commercial catch – which is based on a quota and therefore fluctuates less from year to year – has overtaken the recreational catch in the Bay and in some other states that have a commercial striped bass fishery.

So, for recreational fisheries, the situation can look bleak – but the stock itself is not in peril, Goldsborough said.

“From a biology standpoint, I think we are OK,” he said. “We do need to tighten the belt and ensure that we turn that trajectory back up for the spawning stock biomass. I don’t think it is a crisis, but there definitely is a need to act..”

The more difficult question, said Goldsborough, who is also a member of the ASMFC, is weighing management impacts on commercial and recreational sectors.

“It is really the age-old issue for fisheries management, and that is resolving the difference between managing for commercial fishing objectives and managing for recreational fishing objectives in a shared stock,” he said.

The reason for the decline in striped bass abundance over the last decade, scientists say, has been a series of years with poor reproduction.

In the 13-year span from 1993 through 2005, reproduction was at or above the long-term average 10 times, including the three best years on record in 1993, 1996 and 2001, as measured by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Young-of-Year index. The Chesapeake Bay is where the vast majority of striped bass found along the East Coast are spawned.

But reproduction has been below average in six of eight years since then, including some of the poorest years since the 1980s.

Successful reproduction typically requires two things: lots of eggs produced by females and weather conditions that promote the survival of their young.

Because they can’t control the weather, fishery managers try to keep the abundance of adult female fish high with the hope that when the spawning fish mesh with the right conditions, they will produce a large “year class” of young fish. With striped bass, above-average year classes have been particularly important for overall abundance.

The spawning stock biomass peaked at around 170 million pounds a decade ago, and dropped to an estimated 128 million pounds last year, just 1 million pounds above the minimum threshold of 127 million pounds set by ASMFC. It is on a trajectory to fall below that threshold next year.

But the significance of crossing that threshold is less clear. In fishery management, such thresholds are typically a biologically established minimum. Falling below that number risks a stock crash.

In the case of striped bass, the spawning stock biomass is not set at a danger level. Rather, it is set at its 1995 level, when the stock was declared recovered by ASMFC. It is about 12 times higher than the population’s low point in the early 1980s.

“We don’t feel the population is at a biological risk,” said Tom O’Connell, fisheries director with the Maryland DNR. “Yes, it is lower than stakeholders want, and lower than managers want. But it is not at a biological risk.”

The higher threshold, fishery managers say, reflects the fact that striped bass are considered a marquee species both in the Bay and along the coast.

As a result, O’Connell and some other fishery managers say, the question is not whether something should be done, but rather how much – and how quickly.

While reproduction in most recent years has been low, the 2011 year class was the fourth strongest since Maryland’s Young-of-Year index began in 1956. Those fish will soon reach catchable size – 18 inches – in the Bay, and will shortly thereafter migrate to coastal waters where they typically need to be larger before they can be caught.

“If we did nothing, but we kept fishing mortality at the current level, we would probably see that population come back up, but it may take three, four, five, six years,” O’Connell said.

“We should react, because the management plan and the stakeholders prefer that this species be at a higher abundance level,” he said. But, he added, “we don’t have to react in one year.”

Some recreational anglers, like Friedrich, worry that delaying or spreading out cuts only delays the potential comeback. Friedrich also contended that managers are putting too much stock on the 2011 year class which, he said “are about to go into the meat grinder” as they hit legal catch sizes in the Bay and along the coast.

“That 2011 class is where all the fishing pressure is going to fall,” he said. “It may be the most pressured year class in history.”

But sharp, single-year cutbacks would hit the commercial fishery hard, particularly in the Bay: Maryland and Virginia have the highest commercial quotas of East Coast states.

“In one year, that would be devastating,” said Bull, the VMRC commissioner. “I believe that it is very important, for the commercial fishery here in Virginia, to phase in the impact.”

Fishery managers from the Bay states also contend that new regulations could unfairly hit the Chesapeake.

After spawning, the Bay serves as a nursery for striped bass before they migrate to the coast. Fishery managers say females – which make up the spawning stock – leave the Bay earlier than males, so most of the Bay catch consists of male fish. Sharply reducing the catch on those males does little to boost spawning stock biomass, they say.

For years, harvest levels for striped bass in the Chesapeake were set separately from those along the coast. That was reflected in 2013, fishery managers said, when catch limits in the Bay were 14 percent below those in 2012, reflecting a decline in larger fish in the Bay.

But after a recent stock assessment, the ASMFC failed to set a Bay specific target, citing a lack of adequate information, even as it acknowledged differences between the Bay and coastal stocks.

If the Chesapeake is subjected to the same across-the-board reduction as the rest of the coast, managers say, it will not only hurt the fishing industry, but provide little benefit to the spawning stock.

“It is really misleading to the public to think that this level of reduction in the Chesapeake Bay is going to rebuild the female spawning stock biomass, because our fishery is predominantly males outside the spring trophy season,” O’Connell said.

Karl Blankenship

About Karl Blankenship
Karl Blankenship is editor of the Bay Journal and Executive Director of Chesapeake Media Service. He has served as editor of the Bay Journal since its inception in 1991.

Fall Fishing At Its Best

Fishing West Point with Ed Sheppard a few years ago reminded me again why fall fishing can’t be beat. We had a beautiful day with bright sun, clear calm water, bank trees beginning to show some color and air temperatures in the upper 70’s. To make it even better, we didn’t see a dozen other boats on the lake.

Although Ed was showing me some holes for a Georgia Outdoor News article, we stumbled on something that might interest you. While in the back of Turkey Creek above the boat ramp, a big school of hybrids surfaced around a small island. They stayed on top for almost an hour, feeding on the schools of shad that were everywhere.

Ed caught a couple on a Rat-L-Trap while I stubbornly casted a spinnerbait and bumped it on the bottom, trying to find a big largemouth feeding under the hybrids. I didn’t have any light equipment and I needed a big largemouth for a picture. I didn’t get one.

If you go to West Point, carry an ultralight and tie on a quarter ounce jig. White or yellow should be good. You probably can catch hybrid after hybrid weighing a pound to a pound and a half. They will give you a super fight on light tackle.

Shad were on top everywhere we fished late in the afternoon. Check backs of creeks as well as open water. Watch for schools on top the last couple of hours of light. They are easy to spot if there is no wind. With or without wind, keep your gas motor off and listen. You can often get the direction of a school by hearing them when the hybrids start hitting. When you find a school, ease up to them and don’t spook them. If they go down, wait a while and they will probably return.

We also enjoyed watching a couple of osprey diving and picking up shad off the top. They would fly back to a tree, eat the shad and return for another. These majestic brown and white birds are firmly re-established in our state. When I was growing up, there were not any to watch. They add to a day’s fishing.

Are Clams Good Bait for Spring Stripers?

Big Apple Stripers and the Manhattan Cup

New York City. Just the name conjures up images of the Empire State Building, Lincoln Center, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty– and great fishing for striped bass. Well, maybe the fishing reference is a little strange to some. The Big Apple might be the city that never sleeps, but it is also surrounded by water that comprises one of the major spawning and nursery areas for the equally iconic Atlantic striped bass. The Hudson River, East River, Harlem River, Western Long Island Sound, Raritan Bay, Jamaica Bay and the New York Bight make up a lot of water, and no one knows it better than Capt. Frank Crescitelli of Finchaser Charters, based out of Mansion Marina on Staten Island. We caught up with Crescitelli for a little early-season striped bass fishing in Raritan Bay aboard his Yamaha-powered 32-foot Regulator® in late April.

Menhaden

Menhaden are a favorite baitfish for New York stripers throughout warm weather, but this year exceptionally cold water has slowed the baitfish bite and made clams a better offering.

“It’s been a long, cold winter,” Crescitelli commented, “and the bay waters are still a bit cold so we’re going to be ready to do whatever it takes to catch a few bass. I’ve got fresh clams, and there are pods of menhaden right here in Great Kills Harbor. We’ll stop and catch some live bait before we go looking for stripers.”

In a more typical year, stripers would have already been in residence in big numbers because they come to this area to stage for a 75-mile run up the Hudson River to spawn in fresh water. Unfortunately, this has been anything but a typical year. The winter was very cold with lots of snow, and March and April have been much cooler and wetter than usual. Once the water temperature rises into the mid-50s, the bite will be on with good striper fishing straight through the end of June.

In the meantime, Crescitelli demonstrated some techniques that work well in the spring, and promised to share a little about the Fisherman’s Conservation Association, an organization he helped found and now helps run. He also told us about his pride and joy, the Manhattan Cup, a prestigious charity striper tournament now entering its sixteenth year.

We left Great Kills Harbor and headed west back toward the headwaters of Raritan Bay. “When the water is cold, shallow areas with dark mud bottom warm up quicker,” Crescitelli advised. “That’s if the sun decides to make an appearance. When you get a little outgoing tide after a sunny day and the water temperature jumps a degree or two, the fish turn on.”

He worked flats adjacent to channel edges where the tide creates rips, and also fished around some rock structure using the live menhaden as bait. He marked a few fish and had a couple of run offs on the big baitfish, but it became apparent the cold water had the fish playing with the bait, but not eating it.

“There’s a fine line between bass slurping down a live menhaden or just picking it up, running a little, maybe scaling it, and then dropping it,” Crescitelli said. “The deciding factor is usually water temperature. If it’s just a couple degrees too cold, you may want to take a shot with clams.”

Striper caught on a clam bait

This striper grabbed a clam bait fished on bottom in the Raritan Reach area.

He moved to a different flat near the edge of Raritan Reach Channel and settled back on the anchor. Crescitelli recommended light outfits rigged with fish-finder rigs, sinkers and smaller circle hooks. We baited them with whole, fresh-shucked surf clams. He also started chumming, tossing cut up clams into the water to get a good scent trail going to lead the bass in to the baits. He said serious clam fishermen will put a bunch of broken up clams, shell and all, in a large chum pot and suspend it under the boat.

“Clam fishing isn’t my favorite,” he said. “I’d rather fish with live baits, plugs or fly rods, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do to catch fish and when the water is cold, bass eat clams when pretty much all else fails.”

While we waited for the bass to make an appearance, Frank told us about the FCA (Fishermen’s Conservation Association), an organization he helped to start. It’s a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the “Conservation Triad” access, habitat, and smart fisheries management. Financial support provided by FCA directly benefits the marine waters of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, with a special emphasis on introducing inner city kids to fishing through a program called “Hooked for a Lifetime.” FCA is also working to attain gamefish status for striped bass in New York State waters.

22 pound Spring Striper

This spring bass went about 22 pounds-and soon went back over the side to head for the spawning areas upriver.

“The FCA was started by a small group of former CCA members who wanted an organization that could take on local projects without having to deal with the national bureaucracy,” Crescitelli said. “The kind of stuff we could point at and say, ‘we did that.’ Besides purely conservation and fisheries-based initiatives, we take great pride in our ‘Hooked for a Lifetime’ program. Last year we took 200 kids out for a day of fishing. Each one was given a rod, reel and tackle box, plus a basic fishing instruction manual at the end of the day. We took them to local fishing piers that they can return to on their own, and hopefully instilled in them the wonder we have for the sport and the environment. Last year there were two groups, one comprised of low-income inner city kids. The other group was all kids with autism who have a harder time getting involved in sports that require a lot of interaction with other people. Fishing is something they can learn and enjoy in small groups or individually, and it seems to be quite beneficial for many of them.”

“FISH ON!” Crescitelli shouted as one of the rods bent over under the pull of a nice striper. His friend Tom was on it in a flash working the fish expertly as it took off a good bit of line on the first run. A few minutes later, Crescitelli was netting a fat 22-pound bass. He removed the circle hook from the corner of its mouth, held it up for a few quick pictures, held it in the water to revive, and away it swam. No doubt it would be heading up the Hudson in a few short weeks to spawn.

When Do Kentucky White Bass Spawn?

Kentucky White Bass Spawning Runs Are Here
from The Fishing Wire

March is traditional white bass time across much of the South, but in Kentucky and most other states this year extreme cold slowed the runs until April. Here’s a report from Lee McClellan offering tips that will be helpful, where ever anglers pursue the spawning run of these prolific panfish.

It is now the first of April. If you asked most Kentuckians what it feels like weather wise, they would say it is the first of March.

The warm winds finally began to blow from the South earlier this week and brought the white bass upstream with them.

The spawning runs are finally here.

Kentucky White Bass

Most white bass are caught on small jigs or spoons when they swarm into rivers and creeks during the spring spawning season.

“Last week, in Nolin River Lake, they were up to the Cane Run arm of the lake and should be between Bacon Creek Ramp and Broad Ford by now,” said Rob Rold, northeastern fisheries district biologist for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “We’ve had a lot of warmer, sunny days lately and the water temperature at Wax Marina was 54 degrees on Tuesday.”

Water temperatures breaking the 50 degree mark combined with rainfall signal to white bass that it is time to move upstream to reproduce. They need a gently rising river along with sun-warmed water to begin migrating from the main lake into the headwaters of reservoirs such as Nolin River Lake, Taylorsville Lake, Cave Run Lake, Herrington Lake and Lake Barkley.

Nolin River Lake has arguably the best white bass population of any Kentucky reservoir. The really good fishing occurs from Lick Run all the way upstream to Wheeler’s Mill. Bank anglers have good access to both sides of Nolin River at the Nolin River Voluntary Public Access Area (VPA) via KY 728 (Priceville Road) and Kesselring Road. Bank anglers also fish at Bacon Creek Boat Ramp and at Broad Ford.

Boaters should not venture upstream of Bacon Creek Boat Ramp as Nolin River Lake reverts back to the pool and riffle habitat of the pre-impoundment river at this point, risking the health of any boat motor’s lower unit.

Local anglers are catching white bass around the KY 248 Bridge in the headwaters of Taylorsville Lake in Anderson County. White bass run as far up the Salt River as the once-vibrant river trading town of Glensboro in spring.

The headwaters of Herrington Lake will be churning with white bass with the warming weather. This historic run spawned lure inventions and a regional reputation for incredible fishing. The legendary white bass fishery in Herrington Lake went through a fallow period in the 1990s and early 2000s, but is now producing good numbers of white bass from 12 to 14 inches long.

The good fishing starts near Bryant’s Camp Boat Ramp and upstream into Rankin Bottoms, near the KY 52 Bridge between Lancaster and Danville. Bank anglers may access Rankin Bottoms at the Dix River VPA site at the end of Rankin Road off KY 52 near the bridge. This site grants over a mile of bank fishing for white bass.

Small topwaters as well as crappie plugs are also effective at fooling white bass, which typically weigh a pound or two but can go up to 6 pounds.
With water temperatures just reaching the low 50s, white bass are moving into the upper reaches of Lake Barkley. They are also hitting in the Cumberland River just below Lake Barkley.

When the flows modulate slightly after the recent rains, the white bass will be active below locks and dams on the Green and Kentucky rivers.

White bass fishing inspires such ardor in anglers because these fish strike practically anything that comes near them during their spawning runs. No other fishing compares to it when white bass are really on and biting. Bank anglers can enjoy fishing just as good as those fishing from boats.

Herrington white bass anglers invented the plunker and fly presentation, originally comprised of a piece of broom handle with an eyelet screwed into it. They tied a piece of heavy monofilament to the eyelet with a treble hook dressed in white marabou at the other end. They cast this rig into the boils of feeding white bass and popped the rod to draw the attention of white bass.

Modern anglers use a white chugger-style topwater with the back hook removed. They tie a piece of light braided or monofilament line to the eyelet of the hook and attach a 1/32-ounce marabou jig or a dressed treble hook to the business end. Some remove both hooks to keep the rig from tangling on the cast. This presentation still catches white bass as well as it did in the 1950s.

White or chartreuse 1/16-ounce marabou or feather jigs suspended under bobbers and allowed to drift downstream also work extremely well on white bass. Adjust the depth of the bobber until it disappears from a fish.

In-line spinners of practically any color, small silver spoons and white 2 ½-inch curly-tailed grubs rigged on 1/8-ounce leadhead all score white bass.

White bass are either right on top, a few feet deep or just above bottom. The depth you catch them changes from day to day and sometimes from hour to hour. Keep probing the water column until you find them. When they are mid-depth or deeper, the curly-tailed grub is hard to beat.

The white bass are here, signaling this dreadful winter is finally gone for good. Get out in the next couple of weeks for the most exciting fishing found.

Author Lee McClellan is a nationally award-winning associate editor for Kentucky Afield magazine, the official publication of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. He is a life-long hunter and angler, with a passion for smallmouth bass fishing.

Get the latest from Lee and the entire Kentucky Afield staff by following them on Twitter: @kyafield.

How Can I Catch Backwater Stripers?

Plugging Backwater Stripers
from The Fishing Wire

Light Tackle and Small Plugs Catch Early Season Linesiders

While the Mid-Atlantic states are still dealing with a long, cold winter, there are signs of spring showing up every day – like the robins seen pecking away on the front lawn this morning or the tiny buds of new leaves sprouting on bushes and trees. Even though it’s still cold, we are only a few weeks away from some early season striper fishing. Time to get your gear ready for action.

Early striped bass won’t be giants but they’re often abundant and eager to strike.
From North Carolina’s Roanoke to New Jersey’s Nevasink and north to the Connecticut, numerous tidal rivers will see the early influx of schooling striped bass. This time of year they are very hungry after surviving a winter of cold water and scarce forage. Their targets will be the small baitfish that will begin moving around the shallows as the days get longer and sun warms the flats enough to increase their activity.

Don’t expect these early fish to be monsters. Most will be measured in inches rather than pounds but if you put in your time, you could catch bass in the teens. The fishing is best accomplished with light spinning tackle, seven-foot medium/light action rods with matching reels loaded with light line, six-to-ten pound test low-visibility monofilament. Since you will encounter many of these fish in water that is just a few feet deep, long casts will often be rewarded with hits, and lighter line will cast the small plugs further. Also keep in mind that the water in tidal rivers in the spring can vary dramatically in color depending on tide stage and fresh water flow from up river. It can range from turbid with silt from runoff to clear, especially on the incoming and high tides, so two to three feet of 12-to-15 pound fluorocarbon used as a leader is recommended because it disappears under the water and makes for a much more natural presentation of the lures.

Swimming plugs are the go-to lure for many light tackle guides, like Capt. Terry Sullivan of Flats Rat Charters in New Jersey. He spends much of the early season fishing from his bay skiff in the Nevasink and Shrewsbury Rivers, which feed into Sandy Hook Bay only ten miles from the entrance to New York Harbor. He favors small swimming plugs, most four or five inches in length and minnow-shaped to resemble the prevalent baitfish. He uses a variety of models that run at different depths, from just under the surface to four feet, so he can cover water from very shallow to flats near channel drop-offs. Color selection varies, too. The determining factor is frequently water clarity. If the water is clean, he tends to use natural colors like metallic silver, gold and pale olive green with darker backs. When the water is more turbid, switching to fluorescent colors like chartreuse can get more hits. And if you’re fishing low light conditions that can occur early and late in the day or under heavy overcast skies, colors like yellows and whites can be more easily seen.

An assortment of minnow-shaped diving lures usually do the job on spring stripers in coastal rivers.
Lure speed is an important consideration and can vary with water temperature or activity level of the baitfish present. Bait and bass will tend to congregate in the areas of the river where the water is warmer. Frequently these are found in coves and along shallow banks on the north side of the river. With the sun still low in the southern sky, the north side will get more sunshine and tends to warm more quickly. Early in the spring, the incoming tide will push baitfish upstream with the tide line. As the tide slows the water warms with the sun, and usually all it takes is a degree or two in temperature to get the bait moving and the bass feeding. So be sure to pay close attention to tides and pick your fishing time to coincide with the top of the incoming, slack high and the beginning of the outgoing tide. In some rivers the feeding will continue throughout the outgoing tide.

Keep your eyes open and be aware of what is happening around you. If you don’t see baitfish along the shorelines or in the shallows, work the deep edge of flats or along channel edges. Try working the lures slowly at first. If the bass are not actively feeding they will be more attracted to a slower moving lure, which represents an easier meal. If you start to see bait showering on the surface or moving fast along the shorelines, pick up your retrieve a little. School bass can be very aggressive predators when they are actively feeding and will nail a lure fished at a more brisk pace. Bright, sunny days that warm the water more quickly tend to ignite more active feeding, while on overcast days you will often find the bass holding deeper and a little more difficult to get to respond to the plugs. If that should occur, switching to small plastic shad-type lures with paddle tails, and working them a little slower and deeper, can save the day.

A quiet four-stroke outboard can allow anglers to get close to the fish without spooking them.
When fishing tight spots and narrow, shallow river areas a stealth approach can mean the difference between catching fish or spooking them and putting them off the feed. Quiet four-stroke outboards like Yamaha’s F115, F150, F200 and even the larger V6 models make entering quiet backwaters less intrusive. Using an electric trolling motor to move around them while you stalk stripers can put you within easy casting range without scaring the fish or taking their attention away from the baitfish on which they are feeding.

Paying close attention to all these factors can make catching early season stripers in tidal rivers more productive. As always, when you’re catching fish you’re having a lot more fun. There are hundreds of coastal rivers that will play host to early season striped bass in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Connecticut. So get the boat prepped and the light tackle ready for some fishing fun – spring is right around the corner.

Why Stop Stocking Hybrids In Some Georgia Lakes?

The Georgia DNR announced in 2005 plans to stop stocking hybrids in Oconee, Sinclair, Jackson, and High Falls. That is the bad news. The good news is that stripers will be stocked in those lakes instead of hybrids.

Hybrids are a cross between a striped bass and a white bass. Stripers live in the ocean and run up rivers to spawn. White bass live in freshwater all their lives. Stripers get big – the all tackle record is 78 pounds, 8 ounces. White bass are much smaller, the record for them is 6 pounds, 13 ounces. The hybrid record is 27 pounds, 5 ounces.

Natural populations of striped bass live in the Atlantic Ocean and run up Georgia’s bigger rivers to spawn. Stripers need many miles of moving water for their eggs to survive, so rivers must flow freely with no dams on them. Some of our rivers, like the Savannah and the Altamaha with its tributaries the Oconee and Ocmulgee, support stripers.

Due to many factors the natural populations of stripers in the Atlantic that spawn in our rivers are threatened. One problem is hybrid bass that are stocked in lakes make their way through the dams and populate rivers below them. When in the rivers, they compete with the native stripers running upstream to spawn.

To lower this competition hybrids will no longer be stocked in lakes that feed the Ocmulgee and Oconee Rivers. Instead, striper will be stocked. Stripers can survive in lakes as landlocked fish but they generally can’t spawn since there is not enough free flowing water above the dams to allow their eggs to survive.

Stripers living in lakes get big though. The record landlocked striper weighed 67 pounds, 8 ounces. In some lakes both stripers and hybrids have been stocked since hybrids are usually easier to catch and have a short life span but stripers live longer and get much bigger. From now on only stripers will be stocked in those lakes.

If you fish those lakes you will have a better chance to catch a huge fish weighing over 20 pounds. Unfortunately, they will be harder to catch than the hybrids. On trips to one of those lakes right now you might expect to catch a dozen or more hybrids averaging about three pounds but in the future you will be fishing all day hoping to catch one or two big stripers.

At public hearings held by the DNR, most fishermen making comments were in favor of this change. Only time will tell if it will change your fishing.

There is a good striper fishery on the lower Savannah River when they run in to spawn every spring. Since 1988 it has been illegal to keep any stripers caught there since the population was in serious decline. In 1990 the DNR started stocking stripers in the river trying to build up the populations.

Stocking has worked well, and they are considering allowing fishermen to keep some stripers now. They are planning a two fish daily limit with a 27-inch minimum length on the Savannah River downstream of the Clark’s Hill Dam beginning in October 2005.

Hopefully, lowering competition from hybrids up the Oconee and Ocmulgee Rivers will allow the stripers that spawn in those rivers to thrive and establish a healthy population. Stripers are like salmon in that they return to the same river they were hatched in to spawn.

Stripers that live in the Gulf of Mexico are a separate subspecies and they run up rivers like the Flint and Chattahoochee to spawn. Currently there is no plans to change the stocking of hybrids in lakes that are on those rivers.

There has been a good fishery for landlocked stripers in Lake Lanier for many years. They are so numerous and big that trout can’t be stocked in the lake, stripers like them better then I like ice cream. It is probably our best striper lake.

If you fish for stripers at Lanier, watch for orange tags in the fish you catch. The DNR is tagging 500 stripers this month and offering you $5 to return the tag to them. Returned tags will help DNR fisheries biologists know how the striper populations are doing.

Savannah River Lakes Linesides

Linesides On The Savannah River Lakes

The Savannah River is a silver strand of water separating Georgia from South Carolina like a necklace. There are three pearls on this strand, Lakes Hartwell, Russell and Thurmond. In these pearls are some silver sided fish that make anglers forget about all other kinds of silver.

Hybrid and striped bass are stocked in all three lakes by both Georgia and South Carolina. Those are some of our hardest pulling fish in fresh water, and once you hook one of them you will be hooked on fishing for them. Tie into a 20 pound striper and you will have a fight you won’t forget.

Hartwell, Russell and Thurmond (known as Clarks Hill by most) contain over 150,000 acres of water for the linesides angler. That is a tremendous area to fish and can get confusing. These lakes share some similar characteristics but differ in several ways, too.

Hartwell is on the very upper end of the Savannah River where it forms when the Tugaloo and Seneca rivers join. Russell is stuck between Hartwell and Clarks Hill, with waters backing up to the Hartwell dam and its dam releasing water directly into Clarks Hill. Clarks Hill is the last lake of the chain and the largest of the three.

Georgia and South Carolina share responsibility and authority for the fish in three lakes and they are also managed by the Corps of Engineers. Both states and the Corps maintain boat ramps that offer easy access to fishermen to all parts of each lake. Hartwell and Clarks Hill both have some shoreline development, concentrated in specific areas, but Russell is completely undeveloped and there are no private shoreline homes and docks.

Size and creel limits are agreed on by both Georgia and South Carolina and apply to fishermen from both states. Anglers may have a total of 10 stripers and hybrids combined on all three lakes and there is no size limit. Fishing licenses from either state are honored on all waters of all three lakes.

Blueback herring baitfish are found in all three lakes and they are a favorite food of stripers and hybrids. The proliferation of this baitfish has changed the thinking about management and stocking rates on these lakes and both Georgia and South Carolina agreed to make some changes about six years ago. These changes will affect your fishing this year.

The differences among these lakes might help you decide which one to fish, or help you catch fish on the one you like best.

Lake Hartwell

Uppermost and second oldest on the chain, Hartwell has 55,950 acres of water to fish. Its main lake stays fairly clear and it has many deep points and areas of underwater standing timber. Herring have been in it for many years and are an established baitfish.

In 2001 Georgia and South Carolina agreed to raise the numbers of hybrids and stripers stocked in Hartwell to 15 per acre, almost doubling the numbers of linesides put into the lake. The stocking rate is about half stripers and half hybrids. Those fish are showing a good growth rate and will be a good size this year.

Both stripers and hybrids grow to about one pound the first year they are stocked then put on about two pounds each year after that. A two year old hybrid or striper will weigh around three pounds, a six year old with push 12 pounds. There are a lot of fish in that range in Hartwell from the past six years of increased stocking rates.

Hybrids will not grow as big as stripers because they do not live as long. A five year old, 10 pound hybrid is very old and rare. A five year old striper is just getting started and some will live to be over 20 years old and weigh over 40 pounds.

Anthony Rabern is the Georgia fisheries biologist working with hybrids and stripers on Hartwell. He says there is an excellent year class from 2005 stocking, so there will be a lot of two and three pound hybrids to catch this year. As these fish grow each year they will offer more bigger fish for anglers.

Several things help hybrids and stripers survive at Hartwell. A few years ago biologists changed the way linesides were stocked. Up until then a hatchery truck would pull up to a bridge or ramp and dump its whole load of fry. That might be 300,000 little fish going into one area where food became limited and predators could gang up on them.

Now they spread the stocking out, aiming for releasing no more then 35,000 in one area. That should increase the survival of the fry and mean more fish to catch as that year class grows.

Water temperatures do put a squeeze on hybrids and stripers at Hartwell each summer. As the water gets warmer there is a small band of water that is ideal for hybrids and stripers to live in. This layer of water is the right temperature and has enough oxygen for them.

When the water gets too hot this layer of water becomes smaller. That is not good for the fish. During a drought like we had last year you would think the layer of good water would get thinner, and it does on other lakes in the chain, but Anthony says that does not happen at Hartwell.

Less rain means less runoff into the lake. Less runoff means less nutrients running into the lake. That produces less algae and means more oxygen at the depths the hybrids and stripers need.

Last year Anthony found a 40 pound striper and an eight pound hybrid in their surveys, so there are some good size fish to catch. Those shocking and netting surveys have also given Anthony an idea of where the fish live and where you should fish to catch them. He has come up with six tips for finding them. They should work on any lake you fish.

Anthony’s tips are: 1. Time of day – stripers and hybrids are more active in the early morning and late afternoon. 2. Topography – these fish hold on points and nearby flats. 3. Temperature – find water from 55 to 65 degrees to fish. 4. Turbidity – stripers and hybrids feed better in water that is not muddy, so find clear water to fish. 5. Forage – find the blueback herring and shad and the stripers and hybrids will be nearby. 6. Wind – Wind is your friend, fish wind blown banks and points.

Based on these tips, be on the lake at dawn and fish points near flats at the depth the water is 55 to 65 degrees and clear. Make sure baitfish are in the area and if the wind is blowing get on the windy side. Use either live herring or artificials like spoons and bucktail jigs.

Lake Russell

Russell is the smallest of the three lakes in the chain at 26,650 acres, it is the newest of the three and in some ways the most unusual. Not only is it affected by the water running into its upper end from the Hartwell dam, there is a pumpback facility at its dam, pumping water from Clarks Hill back into it. Its water level does not change as much as the level in the other two.

Georgia and South Carolina agreed to try to make Russell a trophy striper lake. To do that, no hybrids are stocked and only one to two stripers per acre are stocked each year. This should allow the stripers to grow faster and offer fishermen bigger fish to catch.

There are a few hybrids in the lake. They can come downstream through the turbines and overflow at the Hartwell Dam, and a few might survive coming through the pumpback from Clarks Hill. They are not a significant fishery on Russell though.

Russell is a deep, clear lake and offers good habitat for stripers. Growth rates are a little better than two pounds per year and there are already some in the 20 pound range. These fish should continue to grow at a fast rate and produce some trophy fish.

Fisheries biologist Ed Bettros urges fishermen catching tagged stripers to return the tag. Bigger fish are hard to sample so tagging is the best way they can monitor the growth rate of the fish and the success of the program. Help the state keep up with the stripers by returning any tags in fish you catch.

Habitat was a concern at Russell due to the cold, low oxygen content water coming in from the bottom of Lake Hartwell and the cold, low oxygen content of the water being pumped back from Clarks Hill. Oxygen injectors have been added to some of the turbines at Hartwell and others are planned, and oxygen is being added to the water at the Russell dam, too.

By injecting oxygen into the water the layer of water that is suitable for stripers should say wider, allowing them to grow better even during the summer when growth rates slow. The survival rate should also increase.

Both states are looking at a change in the numbers of stripers you can keep at Russell. By lowering the numbers fishermen can keep they hope to increase the numbers of bigger stripers. That change has not been made yet but watch your regulations. Any change will be for anglers from both states.

Stripers are harder to catch than hybrids and the bigger they get the harder they are to hook. You will have to change your tactics to catch stripers on Russell. Use the tips from Anthony’s studies at Hartwell to locate the best areas and times to catch them. Then use big artificial or live bait. Live blueback herring seven inches long or bigger will usually catch more stripers than other baits.

Concentrate on the lower lake below the railroad trestle and drift live herring at the depth the water temperature is best for stripers. Make sure you find baitfish schools near flats and points before dropping your bait down. Use stout tackle, a big striper will head for one of the many patches of underwater timber and wrap you up if you can not turn them.

Clarks Hill

Clarks Hill is the oldest lake on the chain and on the lower end. It is also the biggest at 71,535 acres and has had stripers and hybrids stocked in it for many years. The lake varies a lot from the upper ends of rivers and creeks where water is more stained and gets warmer to the lower half of the lake where the water usually stays clear.

As on Hartwell, blueback herring abound on Clarks Hill and are a favorite food of the linesides. The increase in bluebacks over the past 10 years has led Georgia and South Carolina to increase the stocking here to 15 per acre like at Hartwell. The states coordinate their stocking so each year about eight hybrids and seven stripers are put into the lake.

That is up from the 10 fish per acre done up until 2001. Those stocking levels put three stripers and seven hybrids per acre into the lake. There were a lot more hybrids than stripers, but some of those stripers are still in the lake but most of the hybrids have been caught or died. Some of those pre 2001 stripers are big, with a 50 pound striper possible.

This year there should be good numbers of ten pound stripers in the lake, according to Ed Bettros, fisheries biologist. That is relative to the numbers in the past, he reminds fishermen. They will be easier to catch but not as easy as a three pound hybrid.

There is a concern about the colder, less oxygenated water from Russell coming into the upper Savannah River. An oxygen system has been put in at the Russell dam to increase oxygen content, but that does not extend downstream very many miles. There is hope of another oxygen system being put into the Savannah River several miles downstream of the Russell dam to help the main lake.

Droughts hurt both Russell and Clarks Hill. With less water filling the lake, the band of water ideal for linesides is squeezed thinner and growth rates as well as survival is impacted. Last year we got through the summer without major problems but if the drought extends through this summer there may be problems.

Growth rates in Clarks Hill are similar to Hartwell with both stripers and hybrids adding about two pounds per year to their weight. Stocking is spread out on this lake, too, to help survival rates.

Anthony’s tips for Hartwell will help you locate stripers and hybrids on Clarks Hill. They can be caught from above Raysville Bridge in the Georgia Little River to the dam and up the Savannah to the Russell dam. Clarks Hill has big flats where baitfish and hybrids congregate and you can catch them there.

Always watch for gulls diving on the water, too. This will work on all three lakes. When the schools of stripers and hybrids start hitting the blueback herring the gulls join in the feast, picking off injured herring that float to the surface and grabbing live ones that are trying to escape and get too close to the top.

Dave Willard guides on Clarks Hill for both stripers and hybrids. He says you will be surprised how shallow big stripers will get at some times of the year. He will use a side planner board to take his bait up into three feet of water on points. The planner board allows him to keep his boat out away from the shallows and does not spook them.

Drifting live blueback herring on points and flats on the mail lake will produce stripers and hybrids. Always look for baitfish. Drop several blueback down on a “Carolina Rig” with a one ounce sinker above a swivel. Have a 36 inch leader tied from the swivel to a 3/0 hook and put the herring on it.

As you ease around the flats and points, try to keep your bait down just above the level you are seeing bigger fish on your depthfinder, and just below the schools of baitfish. Make it look like a baitfish that got separated from the school and is an easy meal.

Also drift a couple of live herring on flat lines behind the boat. Tie a hook directly to your line with no weight and let the herring swim freely. That will often attract a roaming striper.

If you want numbers of hybrids and stripers, go to either Hartwell or Clarks Hill. For fewer bites but bigger stripers try Russell. Each of these lakes will continue to get better over the next few years as the increased stocking numbers grow and become more plentiful. The future of linesides fishing on our eastern border looks bright as polished silver.

Visit Dave Willard’s web site at http://www.crockettrocketstriperfishing.com/index.shtml

How and Where To Catch Stripers, Hybrids and White Bass Near Atlanta

I caught this Lanier striper on a jerk bait

There are some sleek, swift fish swimming in waters near Atlanta that will stretch your string like no other freshwater fish. Stripers, white bass and hybrids fight harder than other fish you can hook in Allatoona and Lanier and this time of year is a great time to catch them.

White bass, stripers and hybrids are all closely related and are in the Morone family of fish. They are true bass, unlike black bass that are actually in the sunfish family. White bass are a freshwater species, stripers are a saltwater fish that spawns in fresh water and hybrids are a man-made cross between the two.

White bass are not native to Georgia waters but have been stocked here since Allatoona and Lanier filled. They can reproduce naturally in both lakes so they are no longer stocked. The average size is about a pound but they get much bigger. The world record white bass weighed 6 pounds, 13 ounces and was caught in Virginia in 1989. They fight hard on light tackle and are good to eat.

Striped bass run up Georgia rivers to spawn from both the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. They can live in freshwater year-round and have been stocked in many of our lakes, including Lanier and Allatoona. They can not reproduce naturally in either lake so all stripers in them are stocked fish. Lanier and Allatoona get two to three stripers per acre each year.

Stripers get big. The record land-locked striped bass weighted 67 pounds, 8 ounces and was caught in California in 1992. They are extremely hard fighters and will test your tackle with long, strong runs.

Hybrids are a cross between a white bass and a striped bass. At Georgia fish hatcheries eggs are taken from stripes and mixed with sperm from white bass. The fry are grown to a few inches long then released into our lakes, usually in larger numbers that the stripers. They can not reproduce naturally. Hybrids are not stocked in Lanier.

The daily limit on white bass, stripers and hybrids at both Allatoona and Lanier is 15 fish in any combination. Only two of the 15 may be longer than 22 inches. There is no minimum size limit and the upper limit was set to protect bigger stripers.

White bass are the easiest of the three species to catch and stripers are the most difficult. Although hybrids are sterile and can’t reproduce, and stripers don’t have enough moving water in Allatoona or Lanier to spawn successfully, all three species make spawning runs up the rivers and creeks and this is an excellent time to catch them.

Lanier and Allatoona are similar in some ways and tactics for catching linesides will work on both, but there are some differences, too. Try the following to catch these fish now.

Allatoona

Lake Allatoona is an 11,860 acre Corps of Engineers lake on the Etowah River about 30 miles north of Atlanta. It gets heavy boat traffic but spring is a good time to fish it. Since it has all three species of linesides you can concentrate on one or try for all three during a fishing trip.

White bass are plentiful and can be caught in a variety of ways. Although the population suffered from the low water levels in the past few years they seem to be making a strong come-back. Spawning runs up both the Etowah and Little River arms of the lake should be good this year.

In March and April the whites make runs up the rivers feeding the lake and the fishing is fast. Early in the spring try trolling small jigs and spinners around points where the rivers start to narrow down. Troll at different speeds and depths, using a variety of colors to see what the fish want.

As the water warms move further up the rivers. White bass often go as far up the rivers as they can so you can find them stacked up in deeper holes. Cast small jigs like Hal Flies, spinners like Rooster Tails and small crankbaits and work them with the current. Try to cast to shallow water and work back to deeper water. Vary your speed to make the lures work different depths.

Use light tackle. It is easier to throw the small jigs and spinners that white bass prefer and they will give you a better fight. Keep your drag set light so if you happen to hook a hybrid or stripers you can let it run and play it, giving you a chance to land a big fish on light line.

Stripers will also move into the rivers in the spring and you can catch them in similar places. Use bigger baits for bigger fish, switching to a bucktail or curly tail grub three or four inches long for trolling or casting. An even better bet for stripers is live bait. Catch some shad in a cast net and slow troll them along point drops and outside bends in the river.

When trolling always watch your depthfinder. You will often see balls of baitfish that will let you know you are in the right areas, and you can spot the bigger fish hanging under them. Seeing the stripers under the baitfish lets you know they are there and also tells you how deep to fish.

The low water levels over the past few years have reduced the numbers of bigger stripers but increased stocking means there are more three to five pound fish available. The Georgia DNR has been stocking stripers at a 2.5 fish per acre rate to bring the numbers up and these fish will grow and produce bigger fish each year.

The same tactics that catch stripers will work for hybrids and they will take big baits like the stripers. Another good area to look for all three species is near the dam. For some reason these fish will stack up near the dam in the spring. It seems they move toward the current there. Hybrids are especially attracted to deep points just above the dam where they can be caught on live bait or jigs dropped down to them.

An effective way to catch hybrids is to tie a 3/0 hook 18 inches below a swivel. Above the swivel have a one ounce sinker on your line. Hook on a live shad or big shiner and drop the bait straight down. Slow troll the baits, moving so slowly the line stays straight down, along river channels and long main lake points. Put several rods out in rod holders and cover different depths. When you hit a school of hybrids the action will keep you hopping from rod to rod.

Increased stocking of hybrids has brought the numbers of them up and the DNR says Allatoona should be one of the best hybrid lakes in the state now. Most fish will be two to three pounds this year but there are also good numbers of five to eight pound fish you can catch.

One of the most exciting ways to catch Allatoona hybrids, stripers and white bass is to fish the “jumps” when the fish are chasing baitfish on top. You can often follow gulls as they wheel and dive to pick up injured bait from the surface. On calm days you can ride and watch for splashes as the linesides tear into bait on the surface.

Keep different size jigs and spoons rigged. When you spot a school on top you won’t know which species it is until you catch some and you want to throw smaller baits to the white bass. Sometimes a hybrid or striper will prefer a smaller bait, too.

Start out with a big spoon, jig or topwater since you can cast it further and stay will back from the school. Work in to it and try smaller baits as you get close, especially if you are not getting hits on the bigger baits. Don’t get right in the middle of the school since that will put them down. Try to see which way the school is moving and stay out from them keeping up as they move along.

Warmer weather means it is more comfortable to fish at night this time of year. Tie up under a bridge or anchor on a main lake point near the river channel, hang a lantern over the side and drop live bait down to different depths. As the fish move up the rivers on the spawning run and then back down them you can catch a lot of fish when a school moves by.

Bridges are good because they form a “squeeze” point to force the fish into a smaller area. Long points on narrow sections of the lake do the same. Watch your deptfinder for the depth the fish are at but try baits at different depths until the fish tell you what they want.

Lanier

Lake Lanier is a 38,000 acre Corps of Engineers lake on the Chattahoochee River about 40 miles north-east of Atlanta. Boat traffic makes it almost unfishable on the main lake on weekends and it gets worse as the weather warms. You can still catch stripers and white bass there if you can put up with the crowds.

The white bass run up the Chattahoochee River is almost legendary at Lanier but low water has hurt it during the past few years and the presence of blueback herring has devastated it. The fish have less successful spawns when the lake is very low and the ones that do spawn have most of their eggs eaten by blueback herring.

The state record 5 pound, 1 ounce white bass was caught in Lake Lanier in 1971 so it can produce some big white bass. . Light tackle is the way to go to take advantage of these hard fighting but smaller fish. Unfortunately, with the numbers of bluebacks that are very efficient at eating white bass eggs, the downward spiral in the white bass population is likely to get worse.

Head up the river until it gets very shallow. For years anglers ran up above the Lula Bridge but now you will find shallows far from it. Work deeper holes near shallow bars and points with small baits for white bass running up the river. Keep moving until you find fish. Watch for any activity in the water that tells you fish are present.

If you fish often enough you can find the schools of white bass and follow them as they move up the river then back down. Or if you find a productive point up the river you can stick with it and rely on new schools of fish coming up and restocking the area. A small boat helps get to places that are inaccessible by bigger boats but hold large numbers of fish.

Lanier is known for its big stripers and 30 pound plus fish are caught every year. The DNR says there is an abundance of two to 10 pound stripers and a good supply of 10 to 15 pound fish in the lake. The introduction of blueback herring has made this baitfish the choice of stripers and striper fishermen. You can buy live bluebacks or net them yourself.

Slow troll or drift a seven inch blueback on a tight line below a sinker and swivel and use a 3/0 hook. Locate the schools of stripers under balls of baitfish and drop your bait down just below the school of bait. Make it look like an injured herring that is separated from the school and an easy target.

Look for the stripers above Brown’s Bridge this time of year. They will make a spawning run up the river and then back toward the main lake in the spring. You can drift live bait or troll big plugs and bucktails for them over main lake points near the channel to find the schools of fish.

Fishing the jumps at Lanier will often produce big stripers. Watch for birds and surface activity and cast to fish, staying well back from the activity. A jerk bait or bucktail will work but try a double bait rig, too. Tie a small bait like a front runner or small topwater plug on your main line then run a three foot leader to a big plug like a Zara Spook.

Working the double bait rig looks like a fish chasing a smaller fish and will drive the stripers crazy. You can sometimes get a double hook-up, too. A popping cork with a fly behind it also casts a long way and works well. For added excitement add two flies on separate leaders behind the cork. If you hook one fish you will often see others chasing it trying to get the bait from it. With a trailing fly on the double bait rig a second fish will often hit. You may be able to land two at the time.

Sometimes white bass are schooling alone or with the stripers and the smaller bait is more likely to catch them. Also, when the schooling activity stops on the surface you can often catch more fish by easing around watching your depthfinder in the area where the fish were on top.

The stripers and whites will often go down and hold in the tops of standing timber or on nearby points. When you spot them on your depthfinder get over them and drop a live bait or bucktail down to them. If they are suspended count your bait down to the depth they are holding and fish it there. If the fish are near the bottom drop your bait down and hop it in one place.

If the fish don’t hit, try downsizing your bait. Sometimes a big striper will eat a 1/8 ounce jig after ignoring a bucktail or big spoon when they are not real active. They always have a hard time ignoring a live herring no matter what mood they are in.

Night fishing under all the bridges on the Chattahoochee can be very good this time of year, too. The bridges often look like a small city from a distance with all the lights under them so arrive early to get a good spot.

Tie up, put your lantern and baits over the side and relax until a school of fish give you all the action you can handle. Good rod holders are a must and a reel with a clicker on it will allow you time to get to the rod and get it out of the holder before setting the hook. A big striper can hook itself and put so much pressure on the rod it is hard to get out of the holder.

Give both Lanier and Allatoona a try this spring for linesides or concentrate on one lake and learn its secrets. You can catch them a lot of different ways and the fishing is good day and night for several weeks on both lakes.

Early Spring Striped Bass Fishing

You can catch early sprain striped bass

Conquer cold water early spring striped bass fishing with this easy technique 

from The Fishing Wire

It’s been a long winter followed by an unseasonably cold spring that has been keeping water temperatures down. These cooler temperatures have many eager striped bass fishermen suffering from a case of dampened enthusiasm. Instead of lamenting the cool days of spring, try breaking out of the doldrums with some clams.

Striped bass, like all fish, are affected by the temperature of the water that surrounds them. Cold temperatures keep a striper’s metabolic rate low. They move slower, burn fewer calories and therefore they don’t need to eat as much. They tend to gravitate toward foraging rather than actively hunting live prey, and their shortened feeding forays are very tide-dependent. When foraging, they show a preference for food sources that require less effort to digest, what veteran striper fishermen often call “soft baits.” The number one soft bait you can offer stripers in cold water, and one that will continue to produce even as water temperatures rise, is clams. A nice hunk of fresh-shucked clam on a circle hook fished on the bottom in a prime tidal area will catch early stripers – and lots of them.

Northeast striper authority, Gary Caputi, has years of experience fishing inside waters for early season stripers. Here’s what he had to say.

“Depending on weather and how fast the water temperature starts to rise, clams can produce as early as March in some areas and still be going strong well into May. This gives you almost a three-month window when clams are a top producing bait,” said Caputi. “Early season fishing starts with smaller, non-migratory bass, the ones that winter over in the waters near where they were spawned in the Mid-Atlantic. That means the estuaries surrounding the Delaware and Hudson Rivers are all prime
locations for this technique.

“In the case of the Delaware Bay, clams can produce both striped bass and bonus black drum, which move into the bay system each spring and feed on the shallow flats adjacent to channel edges. The technique is not difficult, but you will need a chum pot, which in this case is a weighted wire mesh container that gets filled with crushed clams and dropped to the bottom under your boat to attract stripers to your baited hooks. Use a good supply of clams, either whole surf clams or fresh shucked in containers, but avoid frozen as they simply do not put out that strong scent that really gets a striper’s attention,” advised Caputi.

The fun part of this type of fishing, according to Caputi, is that the angler can use very light tackle and still enjoy the fight of these smaller, but very feisty stripers. Light spinning rods or baitcasting gear is all it takes. Rigging up to fish with clams is simple.

Slip your running line through a sinker slide, also called a fishfinder rig, and then tie on a small barrel swivel to prevent the hook from sliding all the way back to the sinker. Next tie a three-foot leader of 20-or 30-pound fluorocarbon leader material to the swivel, and snell a 7/0 light-wire circle hook onto the other end. Add a one- or two-ounce bank sinker to the sinker slide, and you’re done.

“Next you have to pick some good places to fish and determine the tides for each,” Caputi said. “Tides are very important as the bass will use them as feeding windows, and they will feed most heavily on the outgoing tide when warmer water will be spilling out of the shallows.

“Just a degree or two increase in temperature is all it takes to spark a strong feeding reaction. Pick places in relatively shallow water adjacent to channels, and anchor the boat so it is still well up on the flats with the current flowing under the boat toward the deeper water. Once you’re anchored, fill the chum pot with crushed clams, shells and all. You can do this by crushing a few clams in a bucket with a piece of wood. I keep an old baseball bat handy for this purpose, but a short length of 2×4 works fine, too.”

After the chum pot is on the bottom with the line tied to a spring line cleat, it’s time to bait up. Grab a good hunk of clam, preferably with some of the belly attached, and thread it onto the circle hook. Then cast it a short distance behind the boat so that bass attracted by the chum pot will find your hook-bait first. Twenty feet back is a good distance and an easy cast for anyone. Then just settle in and wait as the tide brings the scent of your chum and baits over the channel edge. Remember, if they smell it they will come.

“You can keep a couple of rods in the rod holders in the back of the boat or hold them, but be sure to pay attention to them at all times,” said Caputi. “The bites will come in several ways. The easiest to see is when a bass grabs the bait and moves away from the boat. All you have to do is let the line come tight and lift the rod. The circle hook will do the rest.

But when one picks up the clam and keeps swimming towards the boat, the strike is harder to detect. You might see the line between the rod tip and the water go slack for just a moment or the rod tip might twitch. Pick it up and start reeling to come tight to the fish, and keep reeling until the rod tip dips and the hook wraps around the fish’s jaw. Remember, when fishing circle hooks never jerk the rod tip to set the hook. Circle hooks will hook bass around the mouth opening and not in the gills or stomach if they swallow the bait. That makes live release of short fish, or the ones you don’t keep, easier on you and the fish. A release today represents a fish you might catch another time when it is bigger.”

So if the water stays cold, break out the clams and get in on some great early season striper fishing. And be sure to bring the kids because this is fishing everyone can enjoy!

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