Finally! Caught Our First Stripers!

[Bass Ivy]

Well went out for awhile Sat evening Feb 4th. I hoped the stripers would still be in the Prairie Creek area where I had found some there last week. Well we rode around for awhile watching the finder, and by the time we got everything ready to go it was about 3:30 in the afternoon. Found some activity on the finder it looked pretty good so we set in. Ran six planer boards, four balloons, and two down rods. I listened to some of the advice that Feathers and Fins put on this forum, and wound up with our first Stripers. I guess My line size and my hook size had something to do with my problems, because I bought eight new rods had them spooled up with 20 pound suffix elite. I bought me some 1/0 and 2/0 circle hooks and used them instead of the 6 and 7/0 I was using. And I went up to 1oz and 2oz sinkers. Never caught a fish on my old rods in four trips, all the fish came off my new rods rigged this way. I guess smaller line and smaller hooks, helped. We had a big one, but my knot slipped, I guess, and he got away. Right at the boat. I learned something right there, and that wont happen again. Had another one take the planer board for a ride but missed him. I think If I would have gotten out there earlier I would have actually limited out. Now that weve got the monkey off our back as they say it can only get better from here. Biggest one was 14lbs 15oz. all three weighed 40 pounds combined not huge fish, but its a good mess for a couple of rookie striper fisherman. Want to thank F&F for the great info on this forum.

[fishinwrench]

Beautiful, Man. Way ta go!

[Quillback]

Congrats, nice fish!

[Feathers and Fins]

Very Nice, BTW that was me cruising around PC yesterday and watched you guys get the one. Way to go and glad my advice helped.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Nice!

[Bass Ivy]

F&F were you the guy that we actually talked to? While we were fishin? Or were you the guy in the cajun bass boat? I can tell you that I learned some stuff yesterday. One thing was to not run the two down lines behind the boat because everything get tangle in them. Im going to build me two more planer boards and run 8 instead of 6 and run 4 rods out the back On balloons. Another thing I learned is to not be screamin and fightin with my son while were out there because you never know who is watching and listening. LOL Hes right at the age he cops a tude every once in awhile. You know when you are out there and the wind is blowing relentlessly and your pulling 12 lines there are boats around and we are in there in a tight area. Trying to weave that wide spread between the no wake bouys, And hes over there worried about texting his girlfriend. LOL There were moments yesterday where we sounded like the father and son team on Ax Men. LOL !!! The S&S aqua logging guys. But We had a good day! I had a feeling that one of the guys on this forum was out there yesterday.

[Feathers and Fins]

I was in the tracker you talked to. I did enjoy watching you guys trying to pull the striper in. Dont worry i dont think anyone could hear you but it was clear you were trying to give him help and he was doing the teenage thing, dont stress it most of us have been there.

I side scanned your set-up when i went by and looked like your two down lines were actually under weighted they were actually about 30ft behind your boat. Increase the weight on them and they will be in a better possition. Also when hooked up get them up and you will solve a lot of problems. Your other lines looked pretty good, you were covering a lot of water with it and thats the key.

Running between the bouy lines is always risky and with the amount of guys in the area yesterday no way was I going to run more than two lines with the amount of guys out there yesterday and the wind it was hard enough running my flat line where i like. You were deffinately in the area but the stripers were very spread out and not on a good feed. None of my marks showed really good schools feeding. They were basically just hanging near bait schools.

[Bass Ivy]

Ive got an HDS-8 gen 2 with structure scan on the way. I cant wait to get it mounted up and start using it. It seemed like the stripers were scattered I seen them on the finder almost everywhere up in that area, but they were scattered out. Thats when my setup like I was running should help out. I could cover 50 yards on each side of the boat plus directly under the boat and behind. I do want to run 4 planers on each side though from now on. I probably couldn't do it in the no wake zone. LOL ! We actually had our wide planers pulled in tighter than normal because we were in between the bouys. One of my problems is our trolling motor. It turns real easy and its a foot control. Plus I need to adjust it so my foot is in a comfortable position when moving straight ahead. I need to see if I can stiffen it up where I can point it in one direction and it will keep pointed on its own. Man Its a fight in the wind. I was back fixing lines and my son was running the trolling motor when we hooked the 2nd fish I fought him and got him all the way in and netted him and never tangled a single line. That was the way I had my line layout planned to work. If the wind had not been so bad I could have gotten off the trolling motor for periods of time, but when it is blowing like it was I cant take a break off the trolling motor for even a few seconds. I knew yesterday that I needed to jump in the back and reel up the two down lines when my son was hooked up, but I couldnt get off that trolling motor. My son kept saying come net this fish come help me, and I just kept saying you are on your own buddy I cant get off this trolling motor. Ive been working on my setup for awhile. I first made planer boards last year, but they didnt work that great. These I have now are pretty good. I didnt have any egg sinkers big enough and they are a little pricey in my opinion. I have quiet a bit of sinker making stuff and jig making supplies. I have some bank sinker molds. I had 1 and 2 oz and bigger bank sinkers. I ordered me some sinker slides to use, but i didnt have them yesterday. I used a little trick I learned from my Father n Law. He uses cigarette butts as a sinker stop. Instead of using a swivel and a leader he just takes the filter from the cigarette and ties an overhand knot around the filter at Whatever length you want your leader normally. With the sinker above its provides a padded stop for the sinker its easy on your line too. He normally uses egg sinkers, but I used my bank sinkers. I think the bank sinkers with the sinker slides should work well because I can change weight on my line without cutting the line and retying the leader. They just have a big duolock snap on there unsnap it and hang whatever weight I want on there. And when im done fishing i can take the weights off the line completely.

[Bass Ivy]

I wil try heavier weight on the downlines.

[wc1063]

Nice mass there, congrats!!