Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk AL Fishing Talk Lake Martin Spring time stripers

I felt like I had pretty much figured out the stripers during the winter and now spring rolls around and feel like novice all over again. I have managed to catch 6-7 stripers fishing with live bait and down lines but have had ZERO success trolling with planer boards or down riggers using live bait. It seems I spend most of my time searching for them in areas that I did not fish this winter. I have been told they are in a transition stage. Well I am about ready for them to transition because gas is getting to expensive to spend all day running from one of the lake to the other hoping to find a few stripers.

I even decided to book a trip with a local guide and he didn't fair much better than I have on my own as we only boated 3 fish and that was with the live bait that I brought along. I have been all the way up the river and tried trolling there with free lines and live bait, NOTHING. Now with the recent storms it is probably too dangerous to try and navigate up the river with all the trees in the water.

Any suggestions, other than fishing for spots or crappie.

Once the weather warms up I have a hard time consistently catching big stripe with the exception of fishing deep water pier lights at night. 4-6in live bait and a circle hook. When you see a couple 3-4ft long black shadows cruising the light pitch your bait ahead of the fish in the direction it’s headed and hold on. One of the most exciting ways to fish for stripe because you literally watch them eat the bait and it’s real hard not to screw the pooch and set the hook too early. Let them take your bait and then swim away before leaning into the rod a bit and letting the circle hook do it’s job.

Are they not below the dam? They are stacked up below Mitchell right now.

Have you tried around woods and young’s island. Or further south around the ridge marina?

You need an aluminum boat, but go up to the shoals at daylight and work your way up to the first shoal on the right bank. Anchor just below it and cast a large Rapalla or something similar into the current and work it past the slack water behind the rocks. They will snatch your arm off. This late in the year it will help that the water is up and stained.

i’ve fished all around young Island and have had some bite there and up in kowliga area. I cant get below the dam in my boat and I dont have a gas motor on my carolina skiff. a friend of mine goes up in there in his kayak, but not me.

I didn't mean below the dam; I was talking about Erwin Shoals where the Tallapoosa River runs into the lake. You can safely get a fiberglass boat into the lower end of the current, and I have caught some there early and late. But you need aluminum to get up into the shoals where they hang out during the day in the spring.

They're up the creeks trying to spawn right now. If you can't get below your dam - pick another. The dam is an artificial barrier that stacks them up as they're trying to move upstream. They'll be spread out and up the creeks on the lake side of the dam. They get into water you can jump across and spawn.

Troll your planer boards in the mouths of main creeks and then up the creeks making sure to hit points especially. Fish could be as shallow as 5ft to 20ft of water, just have to make a sweep and get an idea where they are hanging. Since the herring have gotten in the lake the fishing has changed. We don't see the runs up river that used to happen. Do they still run?? yes, but not like they did when they were following the shad spawn. Run planer boards with free lines out the back and can even drop a down line or two. The wider the coverage the better or at least as wide as you can control and steer. The last couple weeks with all the rain has made fishing hard to say the least but they are still being caught.

I have been seeing plenty of the blueback herring bait fish on sonar and occasionally there will be some stripers nearby. I guess I should be more patient and sit on top of those bait balls as I sure the stripers will find them eventually.

Be about three or four weeks and they'll be in water you can boat in comfortably. Creek mouths. Then they'll move through the lake into the warm water spots. They never really stop moving.

Just because there is bait doesn't mean there are fish, if you don't mark them below the bait then move on. There are certain areas of the lake that will "typically" hold the fish at certain times of the year. Keep a journal and write down dates, water temp, cloud cover, etc. and use it for reference for a few years. Once you figure them out you will know where to look at certain times and it will click for you. One of my best friends is a guide down there. We / he fished that lake for YEARS figuring them out.
And fyi, when the water gets like chocolate milk or really stained the fish are not going to be there, bait or not. Stripe like clean water and feed by site more than bass so if they are up river and a flood comes and changes the water clarity they will move out and find better water, always fish clean water. Maryland did a study on stripe years ago and found that they can move up to 75miles in a 24 hour period. That doesn't mean they always move that much but it does mean that they are not "home bodies" like a bass, they can and do move and it's nothing for them to move miles in a day down there if conditions change.