I will be heading to Murrary for a weekend of camping and try my luck at the stripers. Hopefully i can get my younger cousins on a few nice ones. We will probably float/drift by the (**() at least 1 morning but I am consididering trying a PM troll as well. I have only fished for stripers a few times and have never trolled for them
I have read through a good bit of postings and appreciate all advice, reports, and techniques you guys share on this forum. However, i still have a few qustions
What is the avg troll speed?
I have a downrigger, plannar, and/or lead. What lure would be good to use off these and is there any specific lure preferred for the type of method used to sink the lure?
Are Teasers/Spreader bars used/necessary?
I know the fish this time of year are in “Lower” end of the lake toward the Dam. Does anyone fish in the river itself on the “upper” end say between SCEG #4 and Hwy 391 bridge?
I have GPS/Sonar as well so i will try to stay on the river channel and look for elevation changes/humps and schools of fish. Any other advice would also be well appreciated.
Deeper water and fish humps close to the river chanels. Most of the fish are from crystal lake down but can be anywhere at anytime. First light until 9-10 am and right at dusk seem to be the more active times but also subject to change at any time. Kinda sounds like a woman to me…
The fish are shallow right now I would not fish any deeper than 50 ft and some real nice fish have been caught at 35 ft also fish are in a crazy summer time pattern if they go back down fish the 50 to 60 ft range on points and humps in the mid lake area not a big fan of the dam area to many boats
If not, you may want to just stick with bait fishing…either live or cut. Without a lake map on your GPS it is really hard to work around points and humps while trolling. If you cant foresee upcoming points or humps you will find yourself running deep to shallow at some point without enough time to turn. If you are set on trolling one eve, you could always just stay in the river channel and fish about 35’ - 45’. I have caught some recently suspended in 120+ fow. Hold one of the baits you plan on pulling in the water next to the boat and watch it and what speed is good to give it the action you want. About 2.3 MPH is a good starting point and then just vary your speed if you are marking fish and they aren’t biting. No need for any kind of spreader.
With what I seen last weekend and from a couple other reports you can catch some fish right now just using stretch25’s or anything similar. But you need to be targeting 30-60’ of water.
“All fisherman lie. And if they say otherwise, then they’re lying”
now for the report… GOOSEEGG
my 10 year old cousin and i went trolling for a while friday pm arround a few islands in about 40ft. I pulled a deepdiving crankbait off each side of the boat. we never got a hit and saw very little fish on the screen.
sat am I had lines in at 6:30 with my dad and cousin… fished til 10:30 out in front the Dam in 4 different spots/humps I have fished before and never got a bite. other boats arround us never pulled in a fish that i saw.
But… at least we had fun and was able to be out on the water. it was interesting to see all the bass boats running from spot to spot and having the chopper fly over us.