I spent a little time in the studio talking with Brad Myers on Saturday morning the 28th of December on Georgia Outdoors Radio, 92.5 FM “The Bear”. We talked about striper fishing and tackle for over an hour. There is a lot of good striper fishing info in the show so if you missed the live version and you want to listen to the edited version including a report from Arnie Davis live from Lake West Point and my segment live from the studio you can Click Here.

If you would like to listen to the full show including a saltwater report from Captain Judy Helmey from “Miss Judy Charters” and a Lake Lanier fly fishing report from Captian Henry Cowen from “Henry Cowen Quality Flies and Guide Service” you can Click Here.

*Be patient, it will take a minute for the upload!

I fished yesterday afternoon, Thursday the 19th and zero’ed for the day. Just before dark I found some stripers back in the creek but they were feeding on small threadfins so the trout I pulled behind the planer boards didn’t work well. I figured they may hit a trout early in the morning if they stayed in the general area so my plan was to hit the same area at first light. I left my dock just before 7am and motored up the creek at first light. After getting a spread out I started marking a few big arches in less than 20 feet of water and I knew the stripers were still there. It didn’t take long till the trout on a freelined balloon started getting very nervous. I was pulling the trout on a balloon about 150-200 feet behind the boat at the time. I picked up the rod out of the rod holder and pulled the bail lever back to free spool. The striper chased the trout around the balloon and soon my thumb and rod tip felt the striper nail the trout and at the same time the balloon took off skimming across the water. I threw the bail lever forward and set the hook on my first striper of the morning, a healthy 15 pounder. It was a nice way to start the morning. I decided to pull boards to the back of the creek so I got as far back as 49 degree water temps and 7 feet of water when I turned around. The back of the creek was like the land that time forgot. Plenty of run down docks and summer homes and it seemed every tree had a few turkey buzzards hanging around. It was like a scene out of “Apocalypse Now”. I kept thinking spears and arrows were going to start flying out of the tree line so I turned around. I went through a dry spell for several hours but I checked another area we had been catching some nice fish further out in the creek and found the big arches on the graph again. Another striper started chasing the balloon bait again in shallow water and after a game of cat and mouse with the striper, I set the hook on him and the fight was on. Just as quick, the fight was off and the striper was gone. I had turned the video camera on early in the cat and mouse game and I had some great footage of a big striper chasing and slapping the trout before he inhaled it. I was holding the rod and talking to the camera as I set the hook on him. It would have made a great video along with the first striper footage I had from my early dawn striper. The camera ran out of memory and I had to dump the videos I had so I could video the next fish.

I made a big circle back to the same area I had marked the arches. I gotta tell you, I can really tell the difference between a big striper directly under the boat in 20 feet of water, and your run of the mill spotted bass swimming to and fro. The big arches looked like they were just dripping with electronic static because of the high sensitivity on my graph in shallow water. It looked like 3 bigger fish just off the bottom in 20 feet of water so I figured I still had a shot at the other two. This pass I aimed the right planer board at the same area and just as the trout passed over the big stripers I saw a big boil where the trout should have been and the planer board rocketed across the water. That’s when I grabbed the rod and reached back to turn on the camera. Here’s what happened next:

I got out for a couple hours before lunch and then hit it again for a couple hours before dark. I picked off a good teenage striper right after getting a spread out around 10 am. The fish hit my biggest trout which was on a freeline with a balloon tied just above the swivel for the leader. The striper was in the same area that we had caught fish a few days earlier. It was my only fish before lunch. After lunch I decided to look around a bit and see if I could find more stripers in a different location but on the same pattern. I found some stripers in a choke down area suspended over the deeper part of the channel and I caught 3 more nice stripers over the course of the afternoon. I gave it up around 5 pm and left them biting.

The stripers I found today were out in the wind over deep water. Most were suspended and the only thing that worked was trout on a balloon about 150 feet behind the boat. Here’s a video from today.

I walked out on the deck facing the lake and saw the wind was picking up and blowing out of the northwest. The forecast was calling for gusts up to 25 mph with a good steady north wind. I saw my neighbor on his dock and I couldn’t resist inviting him for a quick run up the creek and a little striper fishing with the left over trout from 2 days earlier. He agreed and we layered up for a cold ride up the creek. As we rode out of the cove I noticed the water temps had dropped more than a degree from my last trip out in the creek 2 days earlier and was sitting right at 52 degrees. We idled up the creek channel and saw pod after pod of threadfin shad on the graph, and sometimes we would see long clouds of bait hugging the bottom that would continue on and on across the graph. I had scoured the back of the creek earlier for signs of stripers but I saw none. We had gotten several inches of rain over the past month and the back of the creek was still a bit muddy from the run off. We saw some birds working an area out in the wind and we watched for any surface activity beneath the birds. The birds didn’t seem to be diving on the water but it was apparent that they were concentrating on an area close to a wind blown point. We settled on pulling medium sized trout behind planer boards and a few downlines with our smaller trout. I had a few rather large medium sized trout and we put one out on a balloon straight out the back 100 feet. Our plan was to pull 2 points in the general area where the birds were circling. They seemed to be circling one point and then slowing circling another, occasionally diving at the water. The first point was a wash so we decided to run the baits across the second point and around to the leeward side where the wind was very calm and the water was glassed over. Just as we pulled the planer boards into the wind break I looked at the graph and saw that we were directly over some nice sized fish, judging from the fat arches just off the bottom of the 20ft flat on the calm side of the point. We had an audience as a younger fella was loading up his bass boat that was tied to the dock, preparing to launch. I watched the graph as the number of arches grew and I knew we had just jumped a school of stripers sitting on the leeward side of the point ambushing bait as it made its way into the calmer area behind the point. Some of the fish were moving on the graph and some were just stacked in wait. The downlined trout were going nuts just above the bottom and I told my neighbor it was just a matter of time now before something good happens. Sure enough, the right side planer board hit the speed brake and started skimming the water backwards at a high rate of speed. Gene was on the rod in a nanosecond and he set the hook on the running striper. When Gene set the hook I looked at the rod tip and the bow in the tip told me it was a good striper. I could tell the planer board was doing its job by keeping the striper near the surface and swimming parallel to the boat. The downlined trout had been picked up and dropped several times by the stripers beneath, but there were no hook ups as Gene fought his fish to the boat. Gene’s fish was a respectable teenage fish and it put up a great battle to the boat. After releasing Gene’s fish we continued on towards the back of a small cut and we marked sporadic fish as we went. We re-baited the downlines and replaced the trout on Gene’s planer board as we approached the end of the cut and the turn around point. I looked down at the graph and in 13ft of water and directly below the boat was 2 large arches and I knew from experience that we were just above two big stripers in the back of the cove. I looked at my downline and the rod tip loaded up like I had just picked up a brick just below the boat. I grabbed the rod as one of the two stripers hammered the trout on my downline. The striper was determined to get to deeper water and I was determined to get him to my side of the boat for a landing. After I won the battle the stripers left the area and we decided to head back to the house for lunch and to get warmed up. Here’s a short video of the trip to help with the visual effect from the trip.

My neighbor and I got out this afternoon, looking for stripers. We picked up a few trout at the marina and started searching. We didn’t find anything where I had left them biting 2 weeks ago and the water had cooled another 4 degrees. I couldn’t find any surface activity, not even the occasional bass chasing bait on the surface. The lake was like glass and the gulls were just floating around on the water. The surface temps were 53-54 degrees and the lake was about a foot above full pool. The only fish we could find was over deeper water and bunched up and not moving. We had put out a spread of 2 planer boards with medium sized trout about 50-100 feet behind the boards. We also ran our biggest trout on a freeline 150 feet directly behind the boat. Our 2 smallest trout went on downlines. As the planers passed over the fish we marked the left planer board took off and my neighbor David brought in a nice teenage striper. We had another nice striper chase our freelined trout around for a while, but the striper couldn’t catch the trout and he finally gave up. We fished from 1pm till 4pm and caught 1 nice striper; not a bad way to finish off the work week. Here’s a pic:

“It’s all about sight in December”

If there is one major attribute that I can say increases my success rate on any of our major striper lakes in the south in December, it would have to be my sight. Even if I had to, I couldn’t read a newspaper today without my glasses, but if you put me in a boat, I can still see a striper roll from a mile away on a glassed over lake on a clear December morning. For me, December is all about the birds and rolling stripers. The birds have been my guiding eye for stripers for years and I couldn’t begin to count the times birds have helped me in tournaments on strange lakes.
Last weekend we were running down lake and as I scanned the lake I caught a few circling birds out of the corner of my eye. As I looked closer I saw several loons popping up and quickly diving back down as the gulls hovered and darted into the water’s surface. I watched for signs of rolling stripers and soon I saw a tail and a dorsal followed by several surface splashes from other fish around the area. I knew these fish were on the move and the frenzy wouldn’t last long so time was critical. As I approached, I started thinking about what I should throw and settled for burning a bucktail through the area if the fish were still on the surface. The bucktail allows me the ability to cast from a fair distance away and speaking from experience, this kind of fish feeding activity was better observed from a distance. These fish would spook as soon as a boat approached on previous outings and I wasn’t going to take a chance this time. From a fair distance away I cut the motor and quickly dropped the trolling motor. I cranked up the trolling motors speed and got up to the bow platform with my half ounce bucktail at the ready. I picked out a good boil on the surface and put the little bucktail just beyond the boil and started the quick burn back to the boat. Seconds later two quick jerks on the rod tip told me a striper had fell for the little bucktail offering. After setting the hook I was fighting a decent striper on light tackle.
I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve been in that scenario. Not only on my home lake here on Lanier but on numerous lakes throughout the south. The best part about that scenario is that at times the stripers will stay in that general area as long as the bait is there. Last year I was returning from a run up to Browns Bridge from the south end of Lanier and a saw a few gulls and loons working the surface in a pocket in the back of a large bay. I was using live bait at the time, so I put out a spread of planer boards with large trout and gizzard shad as bait behind the boards and my biggest trout straight out the back 150 feet. It didn’t take long till one of my boards was headed back towards Brown Bridge at breakneck speed being towed by a large striper. I fished that general area for the next two weeks and netted four fish over 20 pounds and some nice teenage fish to add to the mix, and the best part was that I had the place all to myself. That is another scenario that plays out for me year after year on our lakes. Just find the birds working the bait and that should be the start to good things if you are a live bait fisherman. If I’m live bait fishing in December I like using a good mix of large and small baits such as trout, gizzard shad and blueback herring on planer boards, downlines and freelines. But whether you’re a live bait fisherman or you enjoy the challenge of using artificial tackle, December is the month of the birds so let them guide you to some great striper action. Happy Holidays!
Jim Farmer is an avid fisherman and is the owner of Cast Away Bait and Tackle, a custom tackle shop located just off the shores of Lake Lanier in North Georgia.