I am wanting to catch a striper on the fly rod. I will be heading to Lake Cumberland soon. I have a 9wt w/multi tip casting line. Any help would be great since this will be my first try.
The equipment sounds fine but I'venever targetted landlocks but I guess they home in on baitfish just like their saltwater cousins. Local knowledge will be key in locating fish, their feeding habits and depths etc. Good luck and tell us how you get on!
Stripers can be gullible or they can be excruciatingly picky, so I'd bring a tying kit or visit local fly shops to see what people are using.
If they are busting on lake shad, any deceiver or popper will get their attention; if they are foraging selectively on shoals or shorelines you'll need to tune into what they are doing.
You're much better off with a boat on a lake unless you know their behavior well enough to know where they go in a tideless body of water (in the ocean we key on tides). Keep your eyes open for bird activity over disturbances on the surface and get there quick. Stand off and let the momentum of the boat glide into casting range.
If you know where there is a stream inlet with bait activity I would definitely give that a try if you are shorebound.
I've also read that shoreline grass flats and shoals attract stripers in lakes just like they do in the sea. Choose dawn and dusk hours or even night.
Talk to locals, I am sure there is lots of local wisdom to reap.
Juro is right on the money, as usual. We have a few local lakes with land-locked stripers and hybrids, fish ranging in size from 5-50 lbs. or so. 8- and 9-wt. rigs are generally the rule, and it certainly helps to know where the fish have been spotted in the few days prior to going out, as land-locked fish seem to come and go like the wind, so be on the lookout for birds and bait. Around here, all-white deceivers and clousers are standard offerings. Good luck!
We will be fishing out of a 20' carolina skiff. I have been on the phone and the local fish forums trying to get some ideas from them. They all say "flyfish on the river maybe, we use live shad here". As of now my starting plans are a type 6 line w/a deceiver maybe w/a smaller deceiver as a trailer. Any better ideas?
Ha Ha! These are die hard bait fishermen, indeed! Remember that your goal is to keep the fly in the strike zone as long as possible, so be prepared to switch tips for different sink rates if the fish are suspending at a certain depth or are crashing bait near the surface. I should think that using the larger deceiver, rather than the smaller one, as a trailer would make more sense; larger fish are usually following smaller ones in the natural scheme of things, rarely the other way around (unless the smaller fish has suicidal tendencies :hehe: ). Either way, best of luck, hope you show those bait fishermen a thing ot two...
We fish for them quite a bit on the Ohio River and yes most people use shad for them. I was going to suggest a trailer but see you already got that area covered. I have found that 95% of the fish will hit the trailing fly. Make sure you got a nice strong leader cause these fish can put up one hell of a fight. While your fishing check around the boat often for schools of shad swimming around because the stripers following them around. Every once in awhile you will see 100 shad jump out of the water, that's more than likely a striper getting a meal. The best tip I can give is cast in the area around the school of shad and be careful not to freak them and let it sink below the school twitching ever so slightly to imitate a wounded shad. If there are no shad to be seen, good luck cause fishing will be tough. Try fishing deeper or maybe try scouting the area to find some nice schools of shad. Like flyfisha said plan on changing depths cause these fish can be anywhere from the bottom to the surface and it changes daily, so don't plan on figuring them out till you get there. We catch mostly "wipers" in our area which is a cross between a striper and a white bass and they are my favorite fish to catch on a fly. Let me know if you need anymore info. If you catch any I wanna see pictures!
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