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Post by chrisw on Dec 17, 2022 13:23:44 GMT -5
It’s nice to see a few reports over the last few weeks, I hope it continues. I can’t complain, because I haven’t posted many if my trips this year, but that’s mostly because I haven’t caught a dingle striped bass this year. Here’s my contribution, maybe someone can give me some suggestions. I hit the lake early this morning (Saturday), around 6:30. Put in at the Halesford boat ramp. A few trailers were already there, despite air temps just below freezing. Probably all LMB fishermen. The sky was clear and the stars were shining. The water was clear and about 52 degrees. Before even hitting the no-wake bouys at the ramp, there were schools of fish showing up at all depths, but mostly around 30 feet. There were sporadic dimples on the surface, but no boils, probably gizzard shad. I had planned to run up the lake a little, but dropped some artificials and trolled through the area instead. No takers. A few minutes later, this was what the traditional sonar looked like. The fish and bait were almost exclusively in the channels.  Moved up lake above Indian Creek and trolled around looking for signs of striped bass. Saw the sun rise during this time.  I spent the rest of my time trolling with the outboard and artificials, 2.4-3mph. Two side planers and 2 divers about 15 feet deep. Spoons, flukes, and bucktails. Trolled all the way back to Stony Creek. As the morning wore on and it got brighter, the massive schools of bait in every channel got deeper and deeper, topping out around 65 feet by 9am.  I spent some time on the main lake channel, something I’ve almost never done before, and saw one small group that almost made me stop and jig for a while, but I moved on hoping for a larger grouping. I never found one though.  My 6-year old got pretty unhappy with the cold, but he survived. Hard to tell how my 14-year old took it, but he was shivering at one point. We were off the water by 9:30. My boat doesn’t have a trolling motor, so most of my fishing has been with artificials either trolling with the outboard, or casting and jigging in promising areas. Maybe more importantly, most of my trips have been at dawn and 2 hours or less. Today at around 3 hours was probably my longest striper fishing trip of the year on SML, and certainly the coldest. |
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Post by medicineman on Dec 17, 2022 18:31:51 GMT -5
We went out yesterday at daybreak. We are trolling Alabama rigs at 1 mph with the trolling motor. Using lead core line and putting out one color- 30 ft. We trolled out of Stoney and also on the main channel. Finally found a school in the back of another creek and caught two. Talked to two separate fishermen who caught stripers within sight of Hales Ford- both on Alabama rigs I think. In the three days that we have caught fish, on two of the days it was after 10:00 am before we caught any.
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Post by chrisw on Dec 18, 2022 13:01:31 GMT -5
We went out yesterday at daybreak. We are trolling Alabama rigs at 1 mph with the trolling motor. Using lead core line and putting out one color- 30 ft. We trolled out of Stoney and also on the main channel. Finally found a school in the back of another creek and caught two. Were you still at 30 feet depth in the back of the creek? I’ve gone to the backs of a few creeks and as far as I can tell, once it gets shallow, the fish are gone, except a few small ones that might be sunfish or something. |
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Post by medicineman on Dec 18, 2022 18:30:30 GMT -5
Actually with 30 ft of lead core out at 1 mph we figure the rigs are running about 15 ft down. We caught the fish in 16 ft of water.
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Post by bigun3 on Dec 18, 2022 20:03:21 GMT -5
About my report a couple weeks ago. Caught a few in bout 30ft. of water on bait. But, most of my fish came from 4 ft. (or less) of water. Just there at the right time when they came up breaking while I was catching bait in the back of beaverdam. However, this time of year, one of the things I like to do is set up in the back of a creek. Did so mid lake. Had to wait on them to heard the shad up, but when they did it was on. Good luck!!! and be extra safe on the water this time of year with the young ones in the boat.
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Post by herringbone on Dec 18, 2022 23:20:20 GMT -5
Fish can be be super shallow right now. I mean deep into creeks running the banks. Don’t be afraid to get back there and dig mud with the trolling motor.
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johnr
New Member
Posts: 1,295 
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Post by johnr on Dec 19, 2022 7:50:21 GMT -5
I’ve noticed that in fall and winter, there will be some fish that push into the very backs of the creeks at sunrise. Very shallow, like backs out of the water at times. Then between about 9 and 11, there will be a big wave of fish and bait move in. They’ll feed for a while then move out again and hang out in the timber. This happens all winter.
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Post by choochoo on Dec 19, 2022 9:24:35 GMT -5
Right now I think the key is finding happy threadfins. From what I’m seeing the threadfins are happy at about 50’ and deeper. I was out Saturday as well. Found a lot of fish in a creek on the bottom at 45’. There were no threadfins around and those fish absolutely would not bite. I retreated to the main channel to search for threadfins. Once I found them I didn’t even look for stripers. I started jigging and thumping. Quit at noon with 2 flatheads, 5 stripers, 2 perch and a largemouth. What your last picture shows is exactly what you are looking for, stripers with the threadfins. A lot of feeding by all species going on 50’ and deeper.
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Post by herringbone on Dec 19, 2022 22:21:34 GMT -5
Interesting term, Choo, happy Threadfins. This can translate into any fishery that has deep holding bait. Thank You for putting this into a simple perspective.
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Post by chrisw on Dec 20, 2022 15:56:38 GMT -5
Right now I think the key is finding happy threadfins. From what I’m seeing the threadfins are happy at about 50’ and deeper. I was out Saturday as well. Found a lot of fish in a creek on the bottom at 45’. There were no threadfins around and those fish absolutely would not bite. I retreated to the main channel to search for threadfins. Once I found them I didn’t even look for stripers. I started jigging and thumping. Quit at noon with 2 flatheads, 5 stripers, 2 perch and a largemouth. What your last picture shows is exactly what you are looking for, stripers with the threadfins. A lot of feeding by all species going on 50’ and deeper. Finding threadfins (I assume that’s what they were. Just big clouds of something too small to make an arch.) was easy. Any channel deep enough had them in large numbers. As shallow as 30’ at dawn, but they were concentrated in channels 50’ and more by 9am. Main lake, large creeks, anywhere with depth, they were visible on sonar. In fact, I’m not sure there were any deeper areas that I didn’t see some. Do you mean look for the EXTRA big schools of threadfins, as opposed to the run of the mill clouds? I will certainly stop and jig for a while if I see that again, even if it’s only 5 large fish on the sonar. |
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Post by chrisw on Dec 20, 2022 16:00:12 GMT -5
I’ve noticed that in fall and winter, there will be some fish that push into the very backs of the creeks at sunrise. Very shallow, like backs out of the water at times. Then between about 9 and 11, there will be a big wave of fish and bait move in. They’ll feed for a while then move out again and hang out in the timber. This happens all winter. I like the sound of shallow stripers. But I’ve only rarely seen it, and so far not been able to capitalize on it. I’ll keep trying though. Just not this weekend!  |
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Post by choochoo on Dec 20, 2022 19:36:52 GMT -5
That fuzz on your finder are the very small threadfins. If you are around in February when they start to die you will see just how small they are. But the stripers are devouring them. You kinda have to start unpeeling the lake. You know the threadfins are running on a 50’ ceiling, so eliminate water less than 50’. Then start looking for squeezes that narrow down the greater than 50’ water. Some of those squeezes are hidden deep in the form of channel narrows. Others are obvious from above water topography.
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Post by herringbone on Dec 20, 2022 21:51:28 GMT -5
Great info there. Thanks Choo. Great way to think about it.
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Post by chrisw on Dec 21, 2022 9:06:22 GMT -5
I just want to squeeze some happy threadfins for Christmas!
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Post by pat on Dec 26, 2022 9:58:16 GMT -5
Hi y'all, I'm up from New Orleans here visiting my folks for Christmas. Been striper fishing on the lake periodically over the last 10 years. I do quite a lot of inshore fishing down in Southern LA and I'm hoping my Dad and I can get on a bite during this cold spell.
From what I'm reading, the stripers are hanging out in the shallows during the mornings and then moving out into deeper waters when the sun comes up and temps move up a bit. It's looking like the avg water temp is 49F right now (10AM). The water is dead calm right now. Air temp is currently 27F and supposed to rise up to 36F by 4PM.
I'm hoping around to launch around 1PM today and work up one of the rivers. We're on the Blackwater side, so I was guessing we'd start there. Dad likes to fish with live shad, but I kind of want to work some Alabama rigs up the channels. If y'all have any advice, I'd be greatly appreciative. If we can't get into some stripers, I'll probably be shifting focus on trying to haul in some of those big winter bass I keep hearing about.
Thanks in advance.
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