Striper Fishing In Lower Illinois

[jace]

Looking for a little help to schedule a trip this year. When is the best general time to come down, and best tecniques to use to go after the big Stripers? Also could use some info as to where to launch a boat to access the last few miles before the confluence with the Ark. river. I appreciate any help. Thanks!

[Zach Bearden]

Many variables in Striper fishing down here. Will you be fly fishing or spin?

The only boat launch around is Gore Landing and you can access the lower river from there.

[jace]

Many variables in Striper fishing down here. Will you be fly fishing or spin?

I

The only boat launch around is Gore Landing and you can access the lower river from there.

I use primarily baitcasting equipment and spinning gear. Thanks for the quick reply by the way. Would you say that live bait is a must? Or are lures a good option?

[Zach Bearden]

No, bait is not essential. I know many guys who use redfins and stuff casting to the logs and catch a good amount of fish.

You can cast net live shad in the lower river (below Marval I believe) for bait or catch trout and fish them as bait. But if you cast net a trout, throw him back immediately. The wardens will crack down on that.

Free lining live bait around logs and other structure is probably the most popular way of fishing the river. Another way is fishing he is at the dam right under the cable with plugs as the water comes down.

[Clouser.minner]

zach

when would you say is the best time frame to target these fish?

[Zach Bearden]

I honestly have no idea.

They change from day to day but it's in the summer.

[OKFlyFisher44]

You never really know when the stripers will start up. Like Zach said, too many variables. 2 years ago, they were in the river by April and were mostly gone by July. We had a good year and caught some good fish. Last year, they didn't start showing up in good numbers till the end May it seemed and they stayed till August. The fishing sucked though. Caught lots of small fish but never could hook into a big fish. What really drive us nuts is you would spend all morning chasing them with no luck, then put away the big rods for our trout gear and you would have them swim right by you. It was frustrating. We caught all our big stripers out of the Arkansas River this year.

I can't wait for the run to start again this year, they are fun to chase. I like to call them our version of steelhead, or "Oklahoma Chrome"

[FlyfishinOK]

I've always fished the Arkansas up around Tulsa for striper & the LIR for trout. Last year I went to LIR about 5 times targeting striper. I only managed about 6 fish with the biggest being about 7 lbs. It was pretty frustrating to say the least. We tried fly & spin, plugs/poppers/live trout, flow & no flow, morning & evening......I don't know if I'm looking forward to going back down there this year or not?

I tied up some big deceivers & clousers over the weekend and put some new Rio Outbound Short on my TFO TiCr-X getting ready for the season to start heating up!