Saturday, October 8, 2016

Breaking the 30 Inch Mark

I got to do a little striper fishing this morning, and for the short time I was able to fish the action was fast and furious. In half an hour I landed 15 stripers, all but one being schoolie size, all on poppers. The shallow tidal creek treated me well! The fish were even more showy this time, making some absurd wakes following the fly.







Though there were some bunker milling around and lots of silversides darting about the edges, it seemed like the stripers were doing redfish stuff... they weren't tailing, but there were lots of wakes and swirls in about two feet of water. I'm not sure what they were chasing, but it doesn't really matter because the popper was getting whacked.




Fish number eight was my biggest... not just of the day either, this was my biggest striper to date at 32 inches! Still not a big striper, but large enough to do some serious knuckle busting. It fought very stubbornly. I could have hooked and landed three 28 inch fish in the time time it took me to land her.



The last seven fish were all small schoolies. A few of them were attacked by bigger bass on the way in. My day was unfortunately cut short before I could connect with one of those behemoths. That's OK...

cuz I'll be back.

8 comments:

  1. Nice fishing! Haven't considered heading into that area to fly fish for strippers before but I will have to check it out! I know the location very well.

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    1. That's fine, just make sure you keep it a bit of a secret. This spot doesn't get as much pressure as other spots and that is the main reason the fishing is so good.

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  2. What equipment were you using for these guys?

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    1. 9ft 8wt, Floating line, 20lb level leader. Don't try to go any lighter on the rod. There are big fish there, rod breaking big fish.

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  3. WOW, that was great! I can only guess how they felt on a fly rod. Was the tide going out?
    Tie, fish, write and photo on...

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    1. This was the last two hours of the outgoing tide on the weaker of the two cycles... typically a bad tide to target big fish.

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  4. That is a day of fishing I would like to enjoy pursuing stripers with a fly rod! Probably as close to fishing for bonefish in the Florida keys as one can get around these parts Congrats on the great day! Regards, Sam

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    1. I'd say it's much more akin to redfish. Carp are way more like bonefish in their behavior than stripers are.

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