Beaver Trip

[Samkam1]

Heading down for the week to chase stripers. Any current reports/advice would be much appreciated! Will be fishing live bait as well as looking for that topwater bite. Looks like the weather is going to cooperate...hopefully a few fish will do the same!

SK

[Quillback]

Good luck! Hopefully you'll give us a report.

[Samkam1]

Well all in all we did fairly well. Set up camp and started fishing around the Rocky Branch area....bad decision. Have never seen the water in the shape it was last week...and talked to some old timers that said they had never seen it like it is now in their entire lives. We ended up finding a few fish and the end of the mud line all the way up around point 4 after much searching all day on Tuesday. Caught one 22" walleye and a 4lb stripe and some black bass and whites. We decided to move camp to Lost Bridge south...it ended up being a great choice.

Ended up fishing all week up around the dam, point 3 area, and across from point 3 to the north. All in all we ended up with over 30 stripes....smallest at 5lbs and I beat my personal record of 18lbs with a 22.5lb 36" male. What a dandy! We had some nice hybrids in the 8-9lb range and a bunch of stripes in the 12-15lb range. We couldn't keep the whites off the hook...caught over 50 of them...as well as another nice 20" walleye, and assorted black bass including a dandy 3lb smallie. Only caught one striper on top-water :-( All other fish came on live bait. The water was in the 65 degree range and with this weather warming up the next couple weeks the top-water bite should be getting great.

The FLW boys didn't mess up our fishing too badly at all...the huge downpour on Thursday and the dense fog on Friday slowed them down some..and we caught most of our fish before they even got started. It sure was fun watching those boats tear around at 80MPH with the Warthog jets and helicopters following them around. Quite a spectacle!

Even with the water as high and muddy as it is...we still had an excellent week!!! I sure was in need of a vacation from the ole grind. SK

[Quillback]

Nice fish! Glad to hear you had a great trip. What did you use for live bait? Did you net your own shad?

[Phil Lilley]

Did you use balloons? I went with a guide years ago that used balloons as indicators and drifted shad underneath them.

[Trav]

I havent fished Beaver since the late 80s.

Looks like I have to get back down there.

Good report SK

[jay bird]

Went last night to Beaver and had two fish on top water. One was about a 8# Hybrid the second was a 43 1/2 inch 34-35# striper. I will try to figure out how to post pictures later today. Lost Bridge area water temperature was 65. On a smokey joe Red Fin, 15 pound test line and one really good net job

[Roaring River Veteran]

Went last night to Beaver and had two fish on top water. One was about a 8# Hybrid the second was a 43 1/2 inch 34-35# striper. I will try to figure out how to post pictures later today. Lost Bridge area water temperature was 65. On a smokey joe Red Fin, 15 pound test line and one really good net job

here are your pics jaybird

[Quillback]

Wow, that is an impressive fish, on topwater no less! I need more fishing time. This thing called work keeps interrupting.

[Samkam1]

We used shiners and perch...floated under baloons and planer boards. It is great to see a board or baloon go skipping across the water then disappear in a big splash!

SK