Need Striper fishing help

[Heatman]

I am becoming obsessed with trying to catch large Stripers. I started fishing for them about 2 years ago and have only caught a handful of them with 2lbs. being the largest. The lake I fish at is small at 2,000 acre with a max. dept of about 65'. Stripers are stocked and I've seen pictures of them at 30lbs.+ taken from there.

I mostly troll trying different methods to get the right depths including weight and even dipsy divers.This year I am going to buy a downrigger to get more precise dept control and a new fishfinder as mine is over 10 years old from my old boat.

Any tips would be appreciated. Lures, baits, depths, speed, and downrigger advice. I have only seen a downrigger used once with a guide on Lake Michigan probably 20 years ago. Thanks Guys!

[Backlash]

Heat,
I've had the best results using live shad, either anchored or drifting. Watch for gulls feeding, under them will be the white bass, and under them will be the stripers. work your way up wind of them, and drift back through with baits set at different levels, until you find the right depth. Use a plain hook with a rubber core sinker about two foot above, and hook the shad through the eyes.

When trolling, we've had better luck using smaller rather than larger lures like you would expect. 1/4 oz roadrunners & rattle traps.
Our best catches have always been this time of year in 15 ft of water or less, which ever way we fish.

I've caught several between 8 & 10 lbs, and 15 is my biggest SO FAR

You know the old saying about wishing someone good luck, so "Break a leg"

[Heatman]

Thanks Backlash. I don't know why but in Indiana they don't sell live shad and in the Indiana fishing rules booklet it says you can't fish with live shad except for 1 certain lake.

I guess they don't want to intraduce more shad into the lakes. I planned to buy a casting net to catch them myself. Can't understand why this would be illeagal. You can use bluegill caught as bait .

[Backlash]

Shad are not easy to keep alive is probably why they don’t sell them. You need a round or oval take with circular water flow to keep them in, and a hand full of rock salt. If you use a tank that has corners, they bunch up and drown. I use a cast net and just catch a few at a time as we need them, and keep them in a 5 gallon bucket. I've got a 15 gallon oval tank I'm going to set up in the boat to keep them in eventually.

I don’t know about their, but in Kansas, if it is caught by legal means, and is of legal size, it can be used for bait. I've even used small Crappies, and White Bass.

One of our lakes here has an infestation of white perch, and I guess it’s a pretty big fine if you get caught using them in other lakes for bait. Fish & Game had to raise the length limit of almost everything in that lake to keep the perch population down.
Of the two lakes I fish most, one has white perch, and the other zebra mussels. They both suck!

[Toontroller]

Backlash, have not tried it but several people on the Texas fishing forum take their 5 gallon bucket and drill small holes all over them and weight it down like a big minnow bucket to hold their shad tied off to the boat. They say it really works well in keeping them alive.

[fishmor]

I have found that the shape of the tank makes no difference. What really matters is keeping the O2 level up and keeping the water clean. When the shad are gathering in the corners means they are stressed, in a round tank they will be butting their heads againist the sides all the way around. I used a bilge pump on a piece of garden hose that I would throw over the side when I stopped and I made my drain at the water level I wanted BUT had an elbow on the inside drain that had a pipe all the way to the bottom of the tank so that the bottom water and scales and such drained out. If you have really fresh water the shad swim all around the tank and don't butt the sides or come to the top. I made a sprinkler head out of a piece of plastic conduit and had a Y three way connector for the spray head and hoses to connect to it. I put a piece of hose that I kept in the tank on the other part of the Y so that I when I wanted to drain the tank I just switch the Y from the spray head to the piece of hose and threw the bilge pump hose in the tank and the single hose overboard and pumped the tank dry. I have kept shad for over ll hours in hot weather with that setup. It is always better to keep the numbers down in you tank as they are easier to keep. But if you keep up a steady stream of fresh water to them you can keep a bunch. I used an ordinary plastic trash can but be sure to get the lighest color you can find. I started with a dark green on and couldn't see the shad at all, I now use a light blue one but white or yellow would be better.

[fishmor]

One that is very effective is to use a plug that runs at the depth required and put about 3 feet of line on the front hook and add a jig, I have never had a striper hit the plug so most of the time I take the hooks off the plug so I will have fewer hangups on the bottom. Some of the guys around here are using a three way about 3 or 4 foot in front of the plug and putting the jig or whatever on a short line there and it looks like the plug is chasing it. I don't use it but think I will start as it makes sense. The guys around here use it for white bass in the summer and occasionally catch a big walleye on the plug.

[icedaddy]

out here in augusta ga we use rapala shad rap about 4 5 inch at night try to find a dock that keeps the lights ont all night long every night--or a trolling a deep diving 5-6 inch blue crank bait and live blue back herring release the line by hand counting out every arms length about three feet each (who needs a down rigger) good luck!!! trial & error-----"experience is what you get when you don't get what you want"

[badmoonrising]

I fish for stripers regularly on the Chesapeake, from it's freshwater headwaters to the saltwater middle bay. Best bait we've found by far is cut bait, usually whatever fish they normally eat in your body of water. That would be shad in your case. We use cut and live spot, white perch, eels, bluefish, bloodworms and even cut croaker. We've found bridge pilings hold tons of fish at night.

I average 24-30 inch stripers spring-mid November and my best so far is 30 lbs, 37 inches.



A freind of mine catches 40 inch plus stripers regularly on bloodworms during the spring run fishing from shore.