Your first ever Striper...

[deerview]

It was about 1977. My father in law had been fishing sml since it had started filling up. We were up in the Yacht Club cove. I was using a new big Zebco my wife had bought me. My father in law told me the reel was too small for stripers. Needless to say, I continued to use it. I was throwing a big broken back rebel and a big striper nailed it. I worked that fish for about five minutes and finally got it to the top of the water and when it saw the lights on the boat, that thing went straight to the bottom. All I could do was hold on to the rod as it stripped line off. That reel kept singing until it locked up and popped the 15lb test line. I sat down in the boat disgusted for a while and then I opened the reel up. The gears had broken and locked up. I tossed the thing aside and started to fish with an old Mitchell my dad had given me years before. We caught many stripers that night and I still enjoy fishing with an open face reel.
I remember the nights where there was so many fish in the cove that the fish finder looked like a Christmas tree and they would hit the side of the boat so hard that you would have to catch yourself. Since those years, kids and many Saturday ball games only allowed me to fish occasionally. In the past year, I have gotten back to being able to fish the stripes and have enjoyed it. My wife caught her first striper this spring and I can't wait for the grandboys (7 and 5) can catch their first.

Love SML

[CorneliaGale]

My first striper was in Jump and Run, a good old friend Randolph Wright and I had put in at Chandlers Marina and went down the lake, had a cooler full of bluegills we had caught the night before with flyrods and home made ants.
Had four rods out with bluegills on them just about dark, all of a sudden the whole cove exploded with breaking fish, he had told me to tie on a lure, I had a shad type lure on a 6' fiberglass rod with a Johnson Saber reel, threw it out and about a 10 lb. striper nailed in, been having a ball with them ever since. This must have been late 70's Randolph is gone now, I miss not seeing him and asking where the fish are, He sure caught his share of them, even had the state record for about a month with a 39 lb. fish, which used to hang in the fire house at Stewartsville, don't know if it's still there or not. Really brings back memories to think about that fish, yes just like everyone else I got hooked and 40 years later I'm still after them.

[leeb]

My first striper, also my first fish, was as BIG AS MY LEG!!!!

Where: Lake Marion "Santee Cooper" in potato creek at my extended families property(since sold). GPS 33°32.777'N 80°13.491'W.

I was fishing with my custom rod made by my grandfather. It was a regular rod that he modified to be shorter for a kid (no kid rods then) and a zebco reel.

When you are small the best place for adults to keep you contained are on a dock or in a boat while fishing. The dock was small but a real fish magnet. It had small pebbles spread all around it to break up the bottom and attracted more fish without showing any clues above water to everyone else. I, of course, do not recall all of the event but have been told the story many times by my grandmother JoJo(short for Jossie). JoJo would tell me that I was sitting on the dock complaining that my bobber would not float, "it's broke". She told me I had a fish trying to take my "cricket" and that I needed to reel it in. I was unable to get the fish to reel in and did not want anyone elses help. So I owned that fish like A BOSS and turned to walk to shore with the rod over my shoulder until I had landed my trophy.

The picture is my dad and myself.