Striper Fishing Newbie
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The weather conditions have been good for striper fishing lately so I figured I would give it a try on Carters lake. I’m not familiar with fishing spots on Carters lake, but I have been reading that stripers are in the creeks right now so I decided to take the dogs out Sunday for a little recon work. Carters is a very pretty lake, especially this time of year. I like it when the leaves are gone so you have a better chance of seeing wildlife. I couldn’t ask for better weather and the dogs had a blast. My yellow lab (Cosby) would start whining as soon as I got to the end of the creek near land so I let him and my other dog (Buster) out so they could swim and run along the bank. After I wore the dogs out, I was able to find some good spots where I saw some lunkers on my electronics hanging out between 30 – 50 feet, but mostly around 50. These guys were flying solo, just as mentioned in other fishing reports.
I decided to head back late yesterday afternoon/evening by myself. I picked up some trout at the bait shop on my way. I fished in on and off again rain until around 9pm last night. I was able to locate a handful of lunkers cruising by themselves again. They were around 50 feet in the creek mouths just like the day before. I also stumbled onto huge schools of bait fish at the mouth of several different creeks. The bait fish were between 15 to 30 feet, but some would actually surface when I pointed my flashlight down into the water. I had my underwater fishing lights with me so I decided to hook them up. Once the lights were on the bait fish would hang with me as I floated slowly downstream. I tested this theory by turning the underwater lights on and off. The bait fish weren’t very big, I’d say around 2 inches. It reminds me of what my buddy used to tell the ladies back in the day… “Two inches says you’re coming home with me tonight.” However, the trout I had were 4 to 5 inches, which is what others have been successful with recently. I kept one trout around 50 feet and moved the other two up around 30 and 15 feet. No luck. I even threw a crappie jig down into the bait fish ball to see if I could snag a few crappie. Nope.
I noticed this morning that some guides I follow also seem to have a slow morning today so maybe the fish just weren’t eating.
Oh well, I still had a good time. I played with my electronics a bit and figured out what frequency allows me to see my bait better so I can be sure they are at the depth I want.
“Two inches says you’re coming home with me tonight.”
Hilarious. Dude, way to be out there plugging away at it Mike. That’s the only way to really figure something out. Please let us know how you do. Jay Malyon has been successful on Carter’s before and may have some tips for you.
Zach
There are lots of quality fish in Carters. The average size is a lot bigger than Lanier, I think. The time I went and we really killed them we got out super early and set green lights out under the boat halfway back in a creek. It wasn’t long before there was bait everywhere and we just threw the net a couple times and had tons of 3-5″ shad. We put lines all around the boat at whatever depth we were marking fish and killed it. I was throwing flies the whole time, but its pretty hard to compete with literally tens of thousands of bait fish swirling around the boat.
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