Stripers And Whites In Fall?

[kjackson]

OK, I have a handle on what walleyes, bass and trout do in the fall, but the whole striper/hybrid/white family is a big unknown for me. What do they do in the fall? Run around aimlessly or head to their spawning areas to wait for the call? Head downstream to overwinter?

What is their game plan?

[Guest]

deleted

[WHARFRAT]

Normally they try to find an all you can eat buffet of shad. Gorge themselves and hang out until its time to eat again. I would look for high concentrations of baitfish. Either on the service or on your sonar. I've witnessed this going on @ LOZ until start of winter.

[Bird Watcher]

Windblown points on the main lake or riffles like saluki said on tribs.

[kjackson]

Where are you fishing?

I fish tributaries of the Mighty Mississippi river for whites and hybrids in the fall. Most vacate the tribs and head to the main river in the fall, but they will push up to the first riffle after a bump in flow. If you are fishing a reservoir, the probably are out chasing shad over open water on the main lake.

Doh! I should have pointed that out. Beaver is very close to me as is upper Table Rock at Holiday Island.

[fishinwrench]

Most of the stuff you'll read or hear about whites/hybrids will attempt to convince you that they "follow schools of baitfish around almost constantly", and while that might be true in bodys of water where baitfish are scarce in comparison to the size of the body of water I don't believe that is true at all in lakes that are thick with shad.

On LO and Truman, for example, shad are EVERYWHERE and I think the whites (at least some of them) operate more like ambush predators and tend to "home range". They seem to hang out in certain areas and launch attacks on schools of shad as the shad move through their "zone". And those are the ones you can kinda pattern. Find a large mud flat where the water is off colored, then look for spots on that flat where there is rocks or hard bottom structure. At some point during the Fall there WILL be a group of whites patrolling that area. Evenings seem to be the best time to catch them being careless about what they put in their mouths.

The schools of whites/hybrids that roam around mid-lake randomly are impossible to pattern so I don't even acknowledged their existance unless they do something to call attention to themselves like start boiling the water within reach of me, or stack up on a windy shoreline....which again is one of those things I "hear about" way more often than I have ever actually been a part of. Running around fishing windy banks and points is nothing but casting practice AFAIC, the odds of stumbling onto a group of mainlake whites is about the same as cashing in on the Powerball unless you know of a certain bank/point/ledge where that sort of thing routinely happens....but then again we are back to dealing with "home range" patternable whites that never required high-tech sonar to locate in the first place.

[Feathers and Fins]

Beaver is simple Ive wrote several things about them and where and when. Right now they are at the dam, Lake is turning over right now so within a week they will be at point 6 and rocky branch 2 weeks coppermine and 3 weeks Prairie creek area. If the shad get in Prairie Creek and Avoca they ( the stripers ) will be there all winter. is the short version. But also from there all the way up to war eagle. not hard finding them at all normally 10 to 20 boats on the schools plus the birds will be here soon to follow.

[Bird Watcher]

The schools of whites/hybrids that roam around mid-lake randomly are impossible to pattern so I don't even acknowledged their existance unless they do something to call attention to themselves like start boiling the water within reach of me, or stack up on a windy shoreline....which again is one of those things I "hear about" way more often than I have ever actually been a part of. Running around fishing windy banks and points is nothing but casting practice AFAIC, the odds of stumbling onto a group of mainlake whites is about the same as cashing in on the Powerball unless you know of a certain bank/point/ledge where that sort of thing routinely happens....but then again we are back to dealing with "home range" patternable whites that never required high-tech sonar to locate in the first place.

Agree on everything else, but disagree on this one. Those fish are on the shallow wind blown banks and points. Usually, they are somewhat relative to where they've been all summer and electronics are the way to find them. It'll drive you nuts sometimes because it turns into a scavenger hunt, but when you seen them on the electronics, they are usually unmistakeable.

[countryred]

Wind blown flats and points, Key on areas with lots of shad.

[Old plug]

I do not know about the windy point stuff. I look for large points That stick out like bars in my area of the lake. Wind are no wind if they are using it they will be there. One thing about those places is if they produce they may do it for many years in a row and become spots that are a tradition with local trollers every fall. I have one very close to my house. Spent the last two evenings over there with limited success. White bass fishing in my area has been the pits for about 3-4 yrs now. It used to be a sure thing. Something has changed and it sort of worries me. I know last evening I caught 6 whites and they were scattered all over the point. The impression I got was the school was very small and stre ched out .