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SkipJack / Freshwater Striper = What a day!

2K views 9 replies 3 participants last post by  willmullis 
#1 ·
Well the water is beginning to recede fromt the recent floods taking with it the yearly migration of the Hybrid Stripers (wipers as the locals call them) up the Ohio River. Fished our normal spots all morning and only ended up with 8 stripers none of which were over 3 lbs. Then the SkipJacks moved into the area!

SkipJacks as some of you may or may not know is one of the more exciting fish that can be caught on a fly. They were chasing a swarm of thousand's of small minnows and they were in a feeding frenzy. All around us you would see waves of 50 to 100 minnows leaping for dear life out of the water and right behind them would be the skipjack skyrocketing out of the water like a torpedo chasing them. We would chase the school of minnows throwing white wooly buggers and then we would just hold on. Many fish "tail walk" while on the reel but few fish attack a fly quite like a SkipJack because it rises from the deep like a freight train and ambushes the fly as it leaps out of the water. It's something you would just have to witness for yourself to understand. Not only do they have unique aerobatics they also can get a decent size the biggest being 2 to 2 1/2 lbs. We ended up hooking up with over 100 fish and ended up putting 36 in the boat. They are a tough fish to land! I'm not sure exactly what region of the coutry the cover but if you ever get the chance you gotta give these fish a chance. I'll post some pics below!
 
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#8 ·
They are wipers technically with is a freshwater stripers and a white bass hybrid. Since we don't have many "real" freshwater stripers in the area we often just call them stripers.

I don't actually know what family of species the SkipJack belong to. I wouldn't consider them a shad. I've heard many call them SkipJack Herring and that what Dble Haul thinks they probably are. I don't know much about what a shad's diet is but the SkipJack is a very aggressive predator fish that love's minnows. So I'm not quite sure what they are.
 
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