When does the cut bait bite going to heat up in the river?
I have heard thay are hitting at the hill! Would think it wont be long in the river!
Cut bait for Stripers! And the water temps are in the low 50’s! Really??
Tommy Richardson and team won the tournament last weekend at the Hill, with 3 Stripers weighing just shy of 54 lbs. I assure you they were not cut baiting!
Rick
Caught some fish in rocky creek today on cut bait!
Cut bait can certainly work in the low 50’s, but it’s usually most effective for me at 60 degree and higher water temps. I feel that the bait and chum emit more odor in warmer water. Right now, I have too much faith in pulling to cutbait, but there are exceptions as Boatpoor’s success points out:smiley:
Xpress HB-22
175 Yammy Jammer
I started out by pulling boards as I normely do this time of year! After pulling for a couple of miles and a couple of hours I tried cut bait and it worked, have never fished it in 52 deg. water before.Never know from day to day!
With our dominant 17th place finish today:smiley: perhaps we should have tried cutbait to move even farther up the ladder:) Seriously, I have cutbait successfully in water as cold as 56. When I first started striper fishing in the 80’s in college, I had no baitwell and cutbait was what I did when not working bucktails and swimbaits.
Lesson learned today was not to fish way upriver when the water temp. drops 9 degrees in less than 24 hours. It was a cold, miserable day.
Xpress HB-22
175 Yammy Jammer
Frogman, did it snow down there yesterday? Give us some info on the tourny!I dont fish on the weekends since I retired. Did for over 50 yrs and got tired of fighting the crowd. It is amazing how many people fish during the week! Thanks for any updates.
Cold and miserable is an understatement…lol…
Started the morning off by hitting a dead deer (couldn’t avoid it where it was laying), 100more yards and hit a possum. Made it to ruby riser, barely miss a big buck, 200 more yards 7 more deer run out and of course there was an eighth who was a little slower than the rest…clipped that one in the hip. AQ pulled in behind me and said what I was thinking if the wildlife movement had anything to do with the fish biting it was gonna be a good morning…
We fished in rain, sleet, snow, and even got to warm up a little in the sunshine…then to top off the weather cycle we got caught in a hail storm coming back from the weigh in. Crazy weather for sure…
Checked first spot and seen some life but stuck with the plan and headed on up. Immediately 3 fish in the boat in the first 15min. Fished there another hr or so but decided to commit the cardinal sin and leave fish to find fish. Moved on up nothing, moved up again and nothing. Decided going up wasnt happening. Moved back to where we caught fish and another couple quick hook ups that led to spit hooks…moved to first spot we checked this morning and started getting into fish, but by this time we had moved to much and had killed alot of bait. Managed 3 more fish there but could have done much better there with live bait. We also had a nice cat but not as big as Fogmans, ours only was 12-15#.
It was a very interesting and fun day. Seahunt0012 even tried to lose a finger (actually twice). Two different times while letting line out for a planer i heard him hollering over my shoulder and turn to find his finger wrapped in the line with a fish on…lol…
“Sea~N~Stripes”
21’ Hewes Craft Custom
115 Evinrude
Haha. Interesting day is an understatement. It was bizarre. I too hit that dead deer…launched boat in a cold rain. We had bites all durn day though. We didn’t move all day fished the same spot. had hits up till tournament end. Lost two nice ones and had enough short strikes to drive you crazy. But as the weather broke and sun came out they started slamming the baits. A fun day all in all though!
Wellcraft V20, 175 Yamaha
Formula 25 SC Express, Mercruiser 260
quote:
Originally posted by boatpoorFrogman, did it snow down there yesterday? Give us some info on the tourny!I dont fish on the weekends since I retired. Did for over 50 yrs and got tired of fighting the crowd. It is amazing how many people fish during the week! Thanks for any updates.
It’s “fog” not “frog.” I got lost in the fog and could not make weigh-in in December of 2000. I had the winning catch in the box and was bestowed the handle.
Team Lanlocked won yesterday with 28 and change. We couldn’t get a 4th keeper and ended up with 17-15. We did have a blue of 20.8. Wish he had stripes and no whiskers:smiley:
Xpress HB-22
175 Yammy Jammer
Team Landlocked was 2nd…Team Shad Up & Fish won the tournament with a flurry of 7+ pound fish in the last 30 mins. Our weight was almost 29 lbs I think…the biggest was 7-12…we caught about 12 keepers
Team Shad Up & Fish
If you’ve had fun catching fish on the transom bait, you are welcome…
I’ve spent about 85% of my life’s wages on fishing, the rest I just wasted…
and all the fish we weighed were released after the weigh-in. We brought 5 to the weigh-in. 4 of them in my striper tubes and the biggest one in my 50 gal. bait tank …lol. We were hoping he might still be hungry…lol. We had fish flopping on the deck of the boat while we dumped the 4 smaller fish that were in my striper tubes. We had to net 2 fish together that came to the boat at the same time and 2 more bit while scooping those up…all over 7 lbs.
Team Shad Up & Fish
If you’ve had fun catching fish on the transom bait, you are welcome…
I’ve spent about 85% of my life’s wages on fishing, the rest I just wasted…
So what was the water temp up in the rivers? Any evidence of a shad kill?
Wellcraft V-20 sportfish with a 200 Evinrude
51.8 was the lowest temp i seen and 52 was highest. So no shad kill. We were in the little.
“Sea~N~Stripes”
21’ Hewes Craft Custom
115 Evinrude
Sorry about that guys… I had the places reversed. I had just finished loading the boat when places were announced and apparently did not hear clearly. We were scrambling until the last minute trying to get a 4th keeper. I dropped Rick and Gary off at Barstow at 3:12 and pulled into Spinners at 3:25. Considering the no wake zone at Big Mans, that was hauling butt.
One place where fish were caught upriver Friday, the water temp. dropped from 58 to 49 between Friday afternoon and when the rain and snow ended Saturday.
Xpress HB-22
175 Yammy Jammer
Congratulations Shad Up and Fish by the way!
Thank you Fogman… Tom I found a place on Friday that was 48 in the channel but when you got off in the shallows close to it, temp went to 51 and we caught some fish. Sat. took longer for the shallows to warm up I guess. The bite was slower and lacked the size that we had been catching the previous day but we had enough places in mind to fish that it finally worked out…guys that fished the deeper water or the warmer water down lake seemed to catch keeper fish consistently through the day.
Team Shad Up & Fish
If you’ve had fun catching fish on the transom bait, you are welcome…
I’ve spent about 85% of my life’s wages on fishing, the rest I just wasted…
Water was around 52-54 yesterday near the split. Had 10 fish or so. 5 nice keepers and a 16lb flathead on a bucktail and a 7lb largemouth on bucktail.
Gene Lyda told me if you ain’t fishing with cut bait you ain’t fishing for Big Stripers! I believe it!
Kevin Lybrand