Stripers

[winter]

New to forum and area and need some help learning. I am mostly a trout fisherman but looking to try some striper fishing fall thru spring. Got a boat coming and have some experince with walleyes from Michigan but little knowledge of stripers. Don't want your hot spots just some answers to questions. I have planer boards I used on walleyes, do you rig them to slide down on take or use like for walleyes and reel them in and remove?? I understand live shad best bait but hard to keep & get, how big should shiners be to free line troll them? Usually no weight or do you weight them?? I seems that lower lake is summer fall area and up river is spring area right generally?? Thanks for any info!!

[SgtChuck64]

  On 7/30/2011 at 11:40 PM, winter said:

New to forum and area and need some help learning. I am mostly a trout fisherman but looking to try some striper fishing fall thru spring. Got a boat coming and have some experince with walleyes from Michigan but little knowledge of stripers. Don't want your hot spots just some answers to questions. I have planer boards I used on walleyes, do you rig them to slide down on take or use like for walleyes and reel them in and remove?? I understand live shad best bait but hard to keep & get, how big should shiners be to free line troll them? Usually no weight or do you weight them?? I seems that lower lake is summer fall area and up river is spring area right generally?? Thanks for any info!!

I am by no means an expert but I have spent a lot of time with the best striper guide on the lake.Reel your boards in and remove them, you don't want that board knocking the hook out of the stripers mouth.I usually use the biggest shiners I can get and weight them down with a split shot in the spring. In the summer the stripers are deep so I would use a bigger weight and fish them straight down. You can also use balloons in the spring.Also, join the Lake Norfork Striper Club, lots of nice guys with a lot of good info. They also have tournaments every month.The easiest striper fishing for me is during the full moon in May. I tie a zara spook on one rod and a jigging spoon or a fluke on the other and wait for them to surface feed. I go down the center of the lake or creek arm and wait for them to come up and then I move into them SLOWLY with my trolling motor. The other tip is look for where all the center console boats are fishing, those are usually the guides, that will tell you where the stripers are.Hope this helps, good luck.

[winter]

Thanks Sarge, that helps, think it would be ok to tye up to one of those center consles?

[SgtChuck64]

LOL, well if you go out with the right guide a few times, he might let you follow him around.

[taxidermist]

Are you living near Norfork? is you live in the Mt Home area Join the Norfork Lake Striper club. Monthly meetings and you will learn what works!

[James32962]

I have used a flatline for stripers before.. This is simple, I use a large line capacity reel, Penn 320 or so, Spool it with 15 lb line or how thw water conditions dictate and tie a barrell swivel. I next tie a 4 foot leader ( flourocarbon) and a octopus hook. I hook the shiner, shad through the mouth and out the nostrel.. The reel has a bait clicker and I let out 80 to 100 feet of line ( linecounter reel helps ) and turn on the clicker leaving the reel in free spool... When the striper hits, I let him rum a bit then set the hook... You can also tie a balloon if you want ( size of an orange, overhand knot onto the line ) Hope this helps