Gary Sundin
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Living on the Saluda and deciding to try striper fishing:) That’s like living on the Madison or the Blackfoot and finally deciding to try trout fishing. I’ve been dreaming of getting over there–one of the few places in the entire world where impoundment stripers breed successfully in an entirely fresh water system. I bet the fish are there now. The run may not be heavy yet, but the fish are moving.
I personally like 2-5″ long gray/white clousers in synthetic materials (polar fiber or neer hair) with lavender krystal flash and a little pink at the throat. 2 1/2″ on a #2 is about standard. I’ll often make a little epoxy head along the shank to help prevent the material from fouling. I generally like smaller flies, especially during broad day. I’ll switch over to bigger flies with darker backs (eg. olive) near dusk. If your fish are eating mostly big baits like big gizzards or stocked rainbow trout, you may have to size up. Around here, the idea that big flies=big stripers is not strictly true at this time of year, except where trout are stocked. I’ve seen a real pretty EP trout pattern, but never tied it.
Show us some Saluda stripers.
G
6 pack of Icehouse tallboys goes around $4.35 (USD). That shit is cheap and delicious. For fancy beer, I’ll take local brew Terrapin India Style Brown Ale. Its their best work yet.
G
I noticed some pond grassies getting on the move last weekend. I’ll try to hit them up when I have a free moment. I won’t devote much attention to common carp until early June when a) stripers are done running, and b) the hex hatch gets them to the surface at night. Then it’ll be on for the summer.
G
I am a biologist and work with fish, though I am no expert on white bass. I often refer to the following for native range questions:
“Diversity, Distribution, and Conservation Status of the Native Freshwater Fishes of the Southern United States”
Author: Melvin Warren et al.
Published in: Fisheries, Oct, 2000.Unfortunately, this article is not freely available online. But according to it: white bass are not native to any Atlantic drainage, nor to the Coosa River drainage nor the Apalachicola/Chattahoochee/Flint drainage (ACF), and are therefore introduced wherever they occur in GA.
Regarding competition from black bass: competition among species is easy to opine about, but how it works and how it effects populations can only be understood through research. Species may prey directly upon each other, compete for common prey items, displace each other from favored habitat, etc. One thing I feel reasonably comfortable guessing at is this: adult GA white bass populations are not significantly limited by interactions with black bass in rivers during their spring runs. Spawning runs are short, desperate, mass events. Competition in the impoundments where white bass make their main living is another matter. GA impoundments have issues with introduced species and/or range expansions with species like spotted bass, blueback herring, and flathead catfish. Also, striped bass are intensively stocked and managed in many impoundments. Anecdotally, the runs coming out of Lanier have decreased with the increased stocking of striped bass in that lake.
I only have experience with a couple runs here in the GA piedmont. I haven’t seen much change in the 10 years I’ve fished them, though runs seem to be a bit cyclical. If there are fewer runs, or if they are shorter or less dense than runs in native Gulf drainages, then there are any number of possible explanations for that, including competition, disease, overfishing, poor habitat, etc. My experience has been that even at the peak of the run, fish must be targeted in specific habitats. In my mud-banked flow this means dead eddies within a few feet of the bank. Especially target big slack eddies on the outside of river bends. Timing is important. Fishing 4-8 times during the run, I’ll hit “great” fishing only a couple times, but find some fish every trip during the month lf April. I’m simply trying to convey that the white bass runs in GA are “good” by my standards, but that there is a learning curve. My advice would be to target flows other than those out of Lanier. Within your general vicinity Lake Oconee and Lake Allatoona are both well-respected for their white bass populations. (Although Oconee is managing more and more for stripers, apparently, so we’ll see how that effects things.) In rocky flows, look especially for the first few major shoals upstream from the lake. Use tandem rigs with different colors or sizes.
John Bennett, that last shot of airborne salmonid is incredible.
Gary educate me man…what kind of trout is that? Gila, Tiger?
That’s a tiger trout.
Nice fish. I’ve always dreamed of muskies. 2008 was not a remarkable fishing year for me; but it had its moments. I did very little trout fishing.
G
I have been slowly plugging away via kayak at the linesides in the local big impoundment. I had several good trips in November/early December. Mid-December I made a run to the Chesapeake and got some yak-access schoolies under the bridge in the dark. Then I reverted to stocked trout (god have mercy on me) for a couple trips, then got blanked last sunday on the lake. Fishing without instruments is getting sketchy there. I can’t really measure up to the photo quality standards on this site, but here is a 7-8 lb fish from November 30.
G
