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Post by Red Bear on Apr 16, 2013 15:25:20 GMT -5
Hi everyone, i'm possibly coming down to SML this weekend to do some fishing with my uncle. I already know he isnt gonna run all the way up the roanoke river arm to fish where it seems yall always slay the stripers. He prefers to stay around the craddock creek area and over by the dam, occasionally he will go to bull run in the blackwater arm. I was just wondering if anyone knew how the striper fishing was in the sections of the lake i listed as i dont see much info here on this part of the lake. chances are we will be trolling artificials, but im willing to listen to any suggestions yall may have to offer up for me. any help will be appreciated whether it puts us on fish or not. Thanks.
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BentRod
Global Moderator
Posts: 2,252
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Post by BentRod on Apr 16, 2013 15:30:18 GMT -5
Heard there's a lot of fish in Craddock just this week. Also have heard of fish in Bull Run recently. Catching them on alewives I think. Good luck!
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Post by Red Bear on Apr 17, 2013 8:27:21 GMT -5
Thanks. I will turn on the dock light friday night and see if i can net some alewives, if i can manage to throw the net good enough lol. that is if they show up in the cove this weekend, and it seems they do early in the year. if i manage to get some alewives, how would you fish them? my uncle doesnt have planer boards. would you just put them on a downline and drift?
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BentRod
Global Moderator
Posts: 2,252
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Post by BentRod on Apr 17, 2013 10:03:36 GMT -5
Do you have a trolling motor? If yes and you have bait, I would run some downlines and lightlines. Stagger the weights..maybe 1-2oz on the downlines up front. Then a couple 3/8oz lines with say 40-50ft of line out and then a couple 1/4oz lines with maybe 60-75ft of line. Pulled about .6-1mph. The good thing about that is if you happen to go across points holding fish you can easily turn back and do some figure 8s, etc on them and usually catch a few even without planer boards.
Trolling/casting artificials should produce some fish as well.
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Post by kzigmond2 on Apr 17, 2013 11:45:54 GMT -5
With any luck at all I'll be fishing that area this weekend too. Still not sure if I'm going to be able to make it down.
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Post by Red Bear on Apr 17, 2013 15:55:40 GMT -5
yeah, theres a trolling motor on the boat. ill have to run that idea by my uncle if we can get some live bait...
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Post by Red Bear on Apr 23, 2013 12:07:24 GMT -5
well, never got to get out on the boat to fish. had battery problems and it was late saturday before my uncle took care of it, of course the boat was sitting on the lift all winter covered up. we had planned to go out sunday morning, even netted a couple dozen alewives off the dock saturday night, but my uncle decided he didnt want to freeze his butt off sunday morning.
but i did plenty of fishing off the dock. friday night it was cold and windy and raining on and off. i hadnt caught much but a little catfish and a few white perch, thought about calling it a night early around 11pm. good thing i didnt, about 11:30 to 12:30 the fishing was on fire. before i knew it i had 5 nice channel cats in the barrel caught on night crawlers and chicken livers in a matter of half an hour.
now, during the slow time i had kept one of those white perch, so i took and made cutbait out of it. took a middle piece with part of the gut pocket and chucked it out shallow and parallel to the bank, maybe 25 yards out. after awhile i finally had a bite on it(cut bait usually serves me well at SML in the cooler weather), at about 12:15 my rod bowed right over in half and popped straight back up. walked over to the rod holder and checked, nothing there, so left my bait out as i could tell it was still on there. about 10 minutes later i notice my line goes slack, and is moving back and forth, i could tell it wasnt the wind messing with me, and the rod tip had never moved or bent over though. so i go check pretty sure a fish knocked my line loose and not the wind, pull my rod out of the holder slowly, lower the tip and reel up some slack, then i swung for the stars. got a nice hookset into a fish. bring it in, i said this is no catfish, its not pulling down and rolling like they do. about that time i saw a silver side of the fish break the surface and go back under, it was a striper. after another minute of fighting this fish i managed to net it. it went 25 inches and 6.5lbs. so while i didnt get out on the boat to fish, i still managed to get me a striper. about 10 minutes later i caught me another nice catfish on the same piece of cutbait i caught the striper on haha.
and i dont know whats up with the fish in this lake, but the bigger ones hit soft, you have to really pay attention to things outside of your rod tip. ive caught several larger fish of various species in the lake that most people wouldnt have known they were getting a bite. they just swim up and eat your bait without even bending the rod tip. this has been with a striper, a bass, a flathead, and a crappie...
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Post by mwardncsu on Apr 23, 2013 12:10:12 GMT -5
Good going redbear - make the most of it. Your uncle's name is not SuperStriper is it? That guy seems to have a lot of issues with boat batteries all the time to ;D
Glad you braved the cooler temps and got on some fish from the dock!
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Post by Red Bear on Apr 23, 2013 15:02:42 GMT -5
haha, no my uncle isnt SuperStriper.
and yeah, it was nice to get a striper off the dock again. this time there were no long runs where i couldnt even reel in. last time i was using a push button shakespeare combo from walmart, the fish went on 2-3 runs and took several minutes to land. this time i was using my abu garcia 6601 ambassadeur c4 and 25lb line, it horsed the striper right in...
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Post by Shadslinger on Apr 23, 2013 19:11:36 GMT -5
More than likely the fish are picking up the bait and swimming toward you with it. I've had flatheads bring my bait allway back to the boat before I knew they were on
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Post by Red Bear on Apr 24, 2013 15:28:03 GMT -5
yeah, thats what happened i believe, but it didnt swim in far. it was hooked in the gullet and the bait was knocked up off the hook and was on the line. i think the back and forth movement in my line was the fish trying to swallow the bait but couldnt because of the hook in its throat. but i was able to safely remove the hook via the through the gills method i learned from a bass fishing forum and is also on the in-fisherman website. if yall dont know that method, i advise everyone to learn it, could come in handy for that fish you want to release that manages to swallow the hook, check out all five steps on the image there in the link below archives.in-fisherman.com/content/through-gill-hook-removal |
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