Striper fishing near Tuscaloosa

Just wondering if anyone has any information on fishing for stripers near Tuscaloosa? Does lake Tuscaloosa have a striped bass population worth chasing, or would it be worth it to just make the trip up to Smith lake? Thanks for any advice

You aren't far from a few major river systems that have stripe. If it were me, I would add an hour to my drive and hit smith.

I've seen huge stripers in Lake Martin and Neely.

I've caught plenty of stripes/hybrids in the 5-10lb range below the spillway in Northport, but nothing the size of the ones you see regularly caught at Smith. Ive never been to Smith before but it seems like I will need to make the drive if I want to get into "big fish" waters.

Caught these around New Years

I could put you on some like these around tuscaloosa. May not be the size you are looking for though

Im not sure you could long arm the first one anymore than that lol

Nice fish 👍, looks like a text book comparison between a striper and hybrid.

I have seen quite a few come from in front of that concrete wall beadles has in his pic. It's a lot fun when they are stacked in that tailrace.

I actually had the hybrid in the net when the striper started blowing up on a shad next to the boat. I flipped some kind of topwater in front of him and he ate it with about 6 foot of line out. Thats pretty much all i throw for stripe is a big topwater bait

Right below Oliver lock & dam is the only place we've ever gotten on them good. I hear that this time of year you can catch them way up North River. They migrate upstream and there's a super shallow area that they can't get across and they just stack up there. My buddy who's a taxidermist says they have a 20+ come in from Lake Tuscaloosa every year about this time

Yeah. I was holding it out there and the guy that went with me stuck his camera phone out. We caught about 10 that size. The majority of the fish we caught were on top or shallow on a point chasing shad. I the biggest one we caught that day was around 30 and it came on an A-rig down close to Duskin Point. December and Early January can make for a fun time on smith with top water being a solid choice. You can catch the 15-20lbers all day but you never know when a hog is gonna strip your spool.

Wayyy up north river on the lake at night is what ive always been told

They are thieves. I had one on Martin steal my spook and most of my line one morning. never slowed him up either.

Very interesting.. I look forward to logging some hours up in North River( very familiar with the lake, but haven't ever been up North River). I don't know how this weather has been affecting them but I imagine the spring time run isn't too far away.

Fished there yesterday there is a new cable across back of north river, with sign saying keep out , so you cannot get to fork in river under dam

So you put in at the river? If so, that's not what I was referring to. I was referring to the north end of Lake Tuscaloosa where North River runs in

Ive been catching them pretty regular below oliver on a drop shot and a live shad.

I am so jealous.

I've got two full weeks and two weekends left on the house in Springville. After that I'm getting the center console up and running even if I have to buy a new to me motor for it. Anybody got a 90-115 laying around that runs right?