Poplar island

[mike o]

I met up with pigpen and fished poplar island this morning. I have never fished there and wanted to try it. It was a great day on the water, no winds and calm conditions. We trolled and casted to the shoreline. Fishing was not great but I managed 4 around 21" and 7 shorts. Pigpen also caught some fat perch. It was nice to meet him

[jeepdawg]

I have never fished there either. Looking forward to venturing out that way in the near future. Any tips on lures or location?

[mike o]

I trolled Tony's and paddletails. I caught 4 shorts on the way to the island. The fish were not up against the rip rap today. I caught some farther out in 8 to 9 feet of water. I also caught some up closer to the grass.

[jeepdawg]

Thanks Mike.

[willf650]

I know most guys here troll for stripers in their kayak but does anyone jig for them. I don't know how willing you are to spin past the island to the bay side and venture from shore but the area around Poplar Island has been very successful for me in my boat. We generally don't troll for them as you just catch fish by happenstance and often the fish are deep. We find the schools of fish and pluck them out with jigging spoons.

Here's a school we ran into last fall on the bay side of the island.


I won't kid you and say all the fish are huge. Some times we run into schools that are composed many smaller fish with a few larger ones mixed in. The problem becomes the smaller ones are so dense you can't get any larger ones on the hook before a small guy gets to it.

I have a couple spots marked in my gps on the bay side of Poplar Island and there have been schools of fish there consistently in the fall when I go striper fishing. I haven't targeted stripers in the summer as we flounder fish but I'm probably going to venture out there in the next couple weeks when we can't get offshore due to the wind.

[mike o]

I used a jigging spoon a little bit in water up to 26' and didn't catch a fish on it. I do a lot of jigging normally and it wouldn't surprise me if there were fish in deeper water that could be caught on jigs. I was mainly exploring the area on this trip.

[supfisher01]

Sounds like a nice trip, Mike. Congrats!