The one that got away! First pic at 6 a.m., second pic 7:15 a.m., but our 7-foot medium-heavy ugly stick can take it.
We hit on this big fish right at daybreak on Sunday and fought for over an hour to get him up from 40 foot water to about 10 feet under the boat. All we could see was a big dark shadow as he came in view of the boat. He gave all he had for one last run with a hard head snap and broke our 20-pound line to swim away. A striper will go belly up after a hard fight above the thermocline this time of year, this fish did not. This was Jaws or a big cat well over 50 pounds, which is another reason they call it fishing, not catching. Maybe we’ll get him next week.
Stripers on Beaver Lake are now being caught from the dam to the Point 5 area on big shad, perch, and brood shiners off the points and flats early, with some coming to the surface then going down to 30 – 40 ft. deep hanging in the main channel. Top water baits can still work early, but your best artificial baits now are the 2 oz. rattletraps, spoons and bucktail jigs.
Here at Holiday Island we’re doing best going out about 3 in the afternoon when they’re letting cold water out from the dam, then going upriver to where it starts cooling and we see schools of small shad on top. The fish know it’s time, and were having pretty good success all the way up to sunset with walleye, whites, bass and trout.
Any lure that looks like a shad can work, but our bigger fish are being caught after I throw the net on these small shad and running a couple baits about 12 ft. deep under a float back behind the boat. They hit these little shad a lot better than shiners.
Well, that’s it for this week. Calendar’s book has a lot of open days now with striper trips going out at the dam at 5 a.m. and Holiday Island trips going out at 3 p.m. Night trips on stripers also available 11 p.m. – 4 a.m. if booked in advance. Good luck and fish the colder water going deeper, upriver and avoiding the sun when it’s high in the sky. Good luck. Robert Johnson, fishofexcellence.com, (479) 253-2258