Couple Of Novices Headed Out Wednesday, Need Advice

[Poke 'Em]

My dad is bringing his boat over from OKC and we're going to hit Beaver looking for some stripers. Neither one of us has really fished for stripers before, so we're pretty clueless.

From what I gather (from reading on here), the pattern seems to be to try to find them on top early in the morning, and then switch to live bait once the topwater bite stops.

My first question is, where to fish? I'm not necessarily looking for your hotspots, but I would appreciate any general direction. It sounds like the fish are back down into the lower lake already, or would we be better off trying the upper lake to catch fish returning from their spawning journey? Also, where can we get bait at? Is there a bait shop that opens before first light, or do we need to bring a throw net? Also, shad or bream? And how deep?

Not being used to fishing deep with live bait, what setup should I use?

I know that's a lot of questions, but thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

[jay bird]

Have not been out if I hear of any reports I will send them you way, usally only fish up towards the dam so could not help if you went farther South.

[BlueWave]

I havent been down in 2 weeks, but Lost Bridge area down to point 5 is where I would look. I like the Lost Bridge South and Starkey area. Hard to find Live bait, especially early AM. Barnett's pawn shop usually has brood minnows (about 3") that have worked, but they don't open until 8:30 A.M (I found out the hard way) and are closed on Sunday. Small bream or sun perch work fine and are easy to catch shallow around most docks on a little piece of worm.

I rig 25 Lb test with a 2-4 oz. sinker down to a good quality barrel swivel, and then attach about 4' of 20 lb Berkeley big game or Seaguar fluor with a 2/0 circle hook, as a summer pattern.

I have seen guys slow trolling balloon rigs this time of year but I have not tried that yet. My best fish this year was right at 25 lb's and Was trolling the summer rig above with a 2 Oz jig and 5 " curly tail when I could not find live bait. Good Luck. There are a lot of guys with more knowledge than I have and maybe they will chime in!!!

[spahog]

The last couple of weeks there has been a pile of them on the north point of the mouth of clifty. They've got there mouths open too. If you put it near them they'll pop it. I don't striper fish much, but we caught half a dozen or more last weekend, because everytime they would come up we convinced ourselves that they were blacks. They've schooled for a good while the last 4 mornings we've been there, but you need to get there early. We were throwing a bone colored spook or a sammy. You can also catch them swimming a grub. No huge ones - the biggest one we caught was 10-12 pounds, but 10-12 on top is still a lot of fun.

Click "striper" below for a link to a map with the area I'm talking about.

striper

[jay bird]

Tried it the last couple of mornings with very limited success. Had a couple yesterday with the biggest maybe being 8#s, the other days only boated one other fish. The fish I did see where on top for a very short period of time and you had to be right on them for a chance. The wind did not help either, but I think the top water bite is slowly coming to an end.

[3outfishing]

At what point will the top water bite pick back up? Mid to late August or is it more into September.