How about since we don’t have any fishing reports anymore that all you old timers share you techniques on cut baiting. What do you look for, how many rods do you put out, everything you would tell your son! 
Look for a point that has deep water close on both sides and anchor bow and stern, as tight as posable. Cast out 360 deg with as many rods as you have holders, set the drags loose and turn on the clickers and wait. don’t worry if you catch a few cats the strips will come. I use the rod holder that have 0 deg and 30 deg stations and use the high one when cutbait fishing I do well in the spring up the river above Saluda River Resort! That’s my two cents worth, learned by many years on the water.
I set my rod holders to hold the tips up too and leave the clicker on too, but I like to leave the drag set just as I would on a downrod. I prefer to use circle hooks and leave slack in the line and leave the drag tight enough to set the hook when the fish takes off. Takes out that chance of someone tightening down too much on the drag while fighting the fish.
'07 198 DLX Carolina Skiff
DF90 Suzuki
quote:I think it is amazing how you old timers caught striper with no graph, no I pilot, just knowledge of the lake. You are a true pioneer Keith. I'm lucky I have someone like you to learn from.
Originally posted by boatpoorLook for a point that has deep water close on both sides and anchor bow and stern, as tight as posable. Cast out 360 deg with as many rods as you have holders, set the drags loose and turn on the clickers and wait. don’t worry if you catch a few cats the strips will come. I use the rod holder that have 0 deg and 30 deg stations and use the high one when cutbait fishing I do well in the spring up the river above Saluda River Resort! That’s my two cents worth, learned by many years on the water.
Carolina Skiff 218 DLV
140 Suzuki
Way back before there was anything close to today’s GPS/mapping technology, open water humps were closely guarded secrets. I’m talking about the days when we lined up our fishing spot with points of reference on the shore. We would use several reference points on the bank along with our flasher to get on the spots. All of this was learned through time on the water and determination. Now, there are no secret humps (but still some secret brush piles and weed beds:wink:).
-The size of a fish is directly proportional to the time between when it’s lost and the story is told. - Me
-What’s the best eating fish, you ask? I’ve found that for a lot people, its the ones that they happen to be able to catch, clean, and cook. - My Dad (1/13/37 - 9/27/16 I love you Pops)
-Until you have loved a dog, part of your soul remains unawakened. Anatole France (paraphrased)
-RIP my “Puppy Dog” 10/15/2004 - 1/14/2013. I’ll never forget him. What a special friend he was.
-Team Gonna Fish
Man back in good old day on lake Murray I would fish at least 3 day a week and every day if it rained and we would kill the big fish,pictures hanging in the landings that’s how we kept score in those days. I went from a bass boat to a cc in 1979 and to the Glassmaster in the mid 80’s had a 2460 Lowrance flasher with the bepper and it would be singing all the time. Remember when I was the only one with a cast net at the towers and catching herring at 80’ by sewing a decoy weight to the horn. after throwing it I had to let someone else pull it in. Fished every thursday and would see no more than 3 other boats other than Granny in her pontoon or Dick Easler in his Glassmaster and ocasionly Eric Bumgardner, they were real fisherpersons! Its a lot more work today, the fish would school all day for miles up the lake. We would rig 4 rods with creekchubs and catch one and stand on the rod so we could cast another
Fishing in general has definitely come a long way in my 50+ years on this earth. Daddy, Grandaddy, and I started off with a 1962 14 foot Crestliner with a 20 Hp Johnson I finally killed in 93. Our depthfinder was an anchor rope with knots tied every foot or so tied to a foot long section of steel rail used on train tracks. To find humps, we would put out the right amount of rope and drag the anchor until we caught. With that and triangulation, we “knew” we found the right hump and caught fish more often than not.
For crappie fishing in the spring, Diddy was our trolling motor. He would stealthily scull from bush to stick-up, and we’d drop jigs on flyrods for nice ones. With stripers, it was all about trolling bucktails, bayou boogies, and lil’ fisheries from November through April. When the fish went deep, the stripers were “over” to us for the year.
By the late 80’s, we got a Humminbird flasher, our first Minn Kota, then a Tcr Id 1 and started spoon jerking. That led to me being more obsessed with stripers, and from my posts you all know where that’s taken me.
Xpress HB-22
175 Yammy Jammer
When I was about 9 or 10 years old my uncle and some friends started going “graveling”. That’s what we called catching catfish out from under the rocks in the river with our hands. Man that was fun. Never got any really big catfish, but we had a lot of fun catching frying sized fish. On a really good day we would have over 100 catfish. I once saw 27 catfish come out from under one big rock. We started calling the big rocks “table rocks”. If anyone tries this, be careful. The rivers can rise unexpectedly, current can get strong fast and catfish have sharp fins. Has anyone ever tried small catfish as striper bait?
Never tried them on stripers but the cobia love them! Just cut off there fins. Years ago at Santee I saw some commotion in the water as I was running up the canal and stopped to see what it was and it was a large striper had tried to swallow a catfish and it was stuck in it’s mouth as I got closer the fish rolled and spit it out.