I got out yesterday to try and track down a few stripers with the trolling gear. It started a little slow but the bite picked up along with the wind. Most of the fish I found were suspended over deeper water and hanging around bait pods out in the wind. I caught most of my fish on the leadcore this morning with a couple hitting the downrigger. I fished the downrigger at 30 feet with a single bucktail and I used double bucktails at 7-8 colors on the leadcore. I think I ended up with 8 nice stripers for the morning. The chartreuese over white and blueback patterns worked the best for me.
One of the reasons single bucktail trolling works well right now is because of the pattern these fish are on. Right now a lot of stripers are picking off single baits straying from a pod of bait over deeper water. I can see small groups of stripers doing the work of busting bait pods up and then single stripers hanging around the outside of the pod reeping the benefits. Stripers are notorious for working together to feed in this fashion. Trolling a bucktail through these feeding areas resembles a straying single bait and the stripers react to the moving bait. The trick is to have the right size and color tones for the clear summer water. Two tone bucktails have worked the best for me. Trolling doesn’t always work well. There are times when it just won’t catch fish. One thing that will improve your success rate is to match the size of what the stripers are feeding on. Right now it’s early in the summer. Bait is still growing and 1 ounce bucktails are just the right size. As summer progresses the bait will get larger. By summers end Stripers will be keying on much larger baits. I look for the trolling bite to be strong through Sept.
The first video is about the tackle and the second is fish catchin. Have a safe weekend!