December 4th- Striper fishing strategies

[ronaultmtd]

I am thinking the bigger fish are south in the middle bay and are going to be in a minimum of 25 feet or more of water along the edges of a deep channel foraging for bunker- I am thinking I need to be trolling three rods- on one rod is a red and white Stretch 25 crank-bait, the 2nd rod- a Rapala XRap XR14 crank-bait in bunker color and the 3rd rod- a three way swivel setup with a 2 or 3 oz cannonball dropper sinker trailing a large white buck tail dressed with a four inch swim shad- figure that gives me the best options- the XRap swims about eight feet deep- the Stretch 25 swims at around 25 feet deep and the cannonball setup has the buck tail two feet off the bottom-

[tufnik]

PLO?

I hear big one are being caught. Good luck!

[ronaultmtd]

Tuf- I am thinking the PLO area in the mouth of the Potomac River/St. Mary's River should hold some nice fish- winds should be OK today but some decent chop is always to be expected at tide changes- I will be looking for structure changes along the edges from shallow to deep- sharp drop offs- points, obstructions, etc. and always keeping an eye out for birds working over a school of breaking fish-

[chex]

Curious to hear how it went...

[ronaultmtd]

Bill and I fished Piney Point today- slow at first- calm, slick waters- not much boat traffic- we fished the long docks at the Point-nothing- 40 feet of water- nothing- I used every combination I had in the tackle box- nothing- we ate lunch waiting for the current to pickup- been on the water four hours and hadn't had a bump- I decided to troll out about a mile or so in 60 feet of water next to a buoy marking the channel- my XRap XR14 got a knock down and peeled some line off the reel before it spit the hook- had some weight to the fish so I perked up- switched off to all crank baits- found some fifty feet water and the red and white stretch 25 got a hit- after a ten minute fight I landed a nice fat striper- an hour later I get a sleigh ride on a six inch shad- fight the fish for over a mile only to lose it at the boat- single hook worked its way out- A little while later I had another hit but the hooks didn't stick- had a total of six hits, four hook ups and two really nice fish landed- I left my Hobie cart at home and my cameras- so Bill took pictures-

[kevinfry]

Yeah I got the report from Bill....sounds like fun. Can't wait for the pictures

[ronaultmtd]

Bill kayaked more than ten miles today- I think I did twice that- I am really tired-

[kevinfry]

I expected! That is why i did not think I should go if I wasn't up to par. Bill and I have a tendancy to go about that much LOL. I was checking out the chart and see a real steep ledge just up the river from the pier....from 17 ft to 72. Maybe next time i'll try to find it! BTW, how deep were your baits running when you got hits?

[ronaultmtd]

Kevin- We were all over that- but we got the fish south of the pier towards the channel buoy. Most hits were in fifty plus feet of water- the shallowest hit was on the bunker colored XRap XR14, about ten feet deep- all the rest were at least 25 feet deep-

[ronaultmtd]

Here is a picture I took this morning- measured both fish- one inch difference in length but a lot more in girth the 28 inch fish had a much bigger girth than the 27 inch fish, although both are nice healthy fish-

[Redfish12]

Ron that 28" is fat!! Congrats on finding some nice ones!

How did you troll three at the same time? Just curious because even with two rods out I sometimes find a way to be to tangle my lines- I can't imagine three!

[ronaultmtd]

I have spread my rods using the 7'9" Capt. Blair Wiggings Blue Flats rods up front on adjustable rod holders that allow me to have them sticking flat out like outriggers- then troll one with a cannonball dropper on a three way swivel up fairly close on my left rear rod holder dragging a big plastic swim shad-

[Redfish12]

Ah there is the difference, I'm usually in water that is much more shallow and wouldn't be able to pull the deep rod off. Good work.

[ictalurus]

Trolling was the way to go yesterday, as Ron showed. I spent a bit of time jigging BKDs and casting Rattletraps at the pier without so much as even a sniff. The flood tide seemed to move pretty well, but the ebb never seemed to amount to much, even at max ebb. While trolling around, I would see scattered marks between 20 and 30ft and more consistent marks at 45ft all the way to the bottom. As Ron said, the fish seemed to be the most concentrated in 50ft. I tried jigging in about 55ft, but I would only get two bounces before the lure was behind me, and it was tough maintaining contact with the lure.

I trolled a 1.5oz chartreuse parachute with a 6" chartreuse shad out to the pier in the morning. Later I trolled a chartreuse Stretch 25, which went untouched. I guess they didn't want chartreuse. I also trolled a #18 Tony spoon with a 4oz inline sinker and half a reel spool's worth of line out. I had a really solid hit on that combination, but it didn't stick for some reason. That was all the action I had for the day. Ron even lent me the lucky Stretch, but I guess I didn't present it properly because I didn't have any hits. I hope that lure isn't cursed now that I've touched it.

Here are the pics:

A bunch of pelicans at the pier:

I think they blew my chances at the pier (that's my story, and I'm sticking to it). There was 50 or 60 of them standing on it originally. When I first approached it, they proceeded to all jump into the water cannonball style. It was like fishing in an artillery range. In fact, I thought a bunch of them were going to fly into Ron as he trolled by.

Ron in the distance with his first fish:


Ron's first fish a bit closer:


Ron's fish on shore (sorry about it being blurry):

That photo doesn't really do the fish justice. They were some of the fattest stripers I've ever seen at that size, especially the one in is left hand.

A nice December sunset:


It's always good fishing with Ron, and it was perfect day on the water. Given the amount of distance we covered and how calm it turned out to be, we could've launched at Buzz's or PLO and headed out to the channel in the Bay. The nice thing about Piney Point is that the channel edges are really steep, which I think helps concentrate the fish a bit. The 50ft contour is pretty well defined, so we could follow it pretty easily.

[MetroMan]

Nice going there. Fat fish!