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Post by slammer on Apr 15, 2018 17:00:00 GMT -5
So, If stripers are opportunistic, then why,when you find a school and drop a bait right in their face, they never even bump it? Different baits, different sizes etc...
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johnr
New Member
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Post by johnr on Apr 15, 2018 17:20:58 GMT -5
Maybe they aren’t stripers.
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Post by slammer on Apr 15, 2018 17:50:35 GMT -5
Naw they are. Wait a while, come back and then they are feeding. Been doing this for 40 years. I lure fish only. If I mark fish and get no bites I remember where they are and keep fishing and looking. Once the feed begins I then run and gun and point hop quickly while they are feeding, it's only going to last so long. I hit the areas that I marked either fish or bait and hit them fast while the feed is on.
Perfect example was this Friday night. Had 4 boats on the water covering about 20 miles of water. We started near dark and were night fishing. I tell everyone to let us know as soon as they get a bite or catch a fish. We fished for close to 5 hours with NO one having a bite in 20 miles of different parts of the lake. No feeding. At 1:15am , a friend text me and had boated 2 fish. I told my friends let's roll. We ran to a spot I had marked fished and boated 4 within 10 min. Ran to the next spot, had a triple on, lost one of them but got 2 33 inchers in the boat. Next point, wham, 40 incher and fat in the boat. Friend 5 miles away Called and had just boated 2. The feed was on. If it's not, you may as well have a seat. I have friends that fish with me that take advantage of this. Haha. They will fish a bit and if no bites or catches they will sit down and play on their phones. But as soon as I get hit or catch one, they are up and in the game. Once those fish are full, it's over brother! For a while at least.
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piper
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Post by piper on Apr 16, 2018 14:20:45 GMT -5
So, If stripers are opportunistic, then why,when you find a school and drop a bait right in their face, they never even bump it? Different baits, different sizes etc... Maybe they have something else on their mind. Ive run into this a few times during spawning season. Ive been surrounded by schools only to watch them swim right by....just a thought
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2018 17:33:49 GMT -5
Very interesting topic. I'll have to side with ghost on this one. November, bout 5 years ago I sat on a huge school of fish for a day and a half, nothing. Tried everything and size bait. accidentally foul hooked one on a spoon. Reeled it in and it spit up prolly 10 3 inch ales. Mid-lake, a few years ago, on a good school all morning...nothing. Ran up to beaverdam.... ran into what seemed like everyone who striper fishes. Went back in, ate and rested till evening. Went back to the mid-lake fish and they wanted to eat.... has happened several times over the years.
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Post by coheasion on Apr 20, 2018 7:40:09 GMT -5
This has been a fascinating discussion, and one aspect I don't think anyone has touched on is I feel that stripers are also just ornery mean bastards sometimes and will hit baits even if they are not real hungry. We sometimes mistake that for feeding action. This is most prevalent during the spawn time of year but occasionally happens at other times.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2018 20:09:09 GMT -5
Ha!!! my son read my post, called me and said, dad, "do you not remember the fish I caught one March on a bucktail when I first started striper fishing. Filleted it and it had 15 ales in its stomach. Told him I only kept a log of the fish "I" caught and if he wanted to hijack my post, to join the site. But, I do remember...guess it blows my post above out of the water since its gut was full and it was still feeding.
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Post by hillbilly on Apr 20, 2018 21:21:16 GMT -5
My 2 cents - stripers spend a fair amount of the year schooling. When in schools, I don't think they are all that predative. They swim around and feed on schools of shad and other baitfish, eat till they are full, and very likely after gorging won't eat anything that is put right in front of their face. Like others have said, I've worked a lot of lures and bait through schools with no takers. Now, when you see fish surface busting on bait, or when you start catching fish in the winter in bait where birds are feeding as examples - well, that on the other hand is a hungry school of fish.
There are times when stripers become more independent and predatory in nature. The best example is during the spring season which is coming up when they become more independent and feed during the bait spawn. They will work in and out of schools to the bank line to feed on spawning bait, or cruise into the shallows, feeding on bait for this whole period of time. Water temp controls the on/off switch with the ale and shad spawn, and the stripers are usually a bit late on the front end to follow the ales to shallower water in early spring, but quick to head back to deeper water and re school once the shad spawn is over.
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