Monday, February 02, 2009

Striper Al


February 2nd, 2009: Sunny and warm, Water Temp 47* and Clear.
Caught bait early and was on the water at daybreak. I wanted to get my spread of boards out before we got hit but only had time to get 7 out before we started hooking up. I finally got 12 lines in the water 30 minutes later, every time I thought I would catch up Al hooked another fish. We had fun with those fish and decided to hit some similar areas and moved on. We found numerous schools of fish stacked from 22' to 35 ' over 40 foot flats. We lost count of fish today but a heck of a front blew in , the air temp dropped 20* and we headed for the barn. All but 4 fish were released today.
PS....Striper Al is one of my oldest clients,[ not in age ] many years ago we fished every Saturday of the year. He came back in town and just wanted to see if there were any Stripers left in the lake. There are, thanks to Va.Game and Inland fisheries!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

GREAT FISH....Looks like some hogs. I want to see if Jim can put me on some fish like that.

Anonymous said...

I first started fishing with Jim in 1997. We would catch 3 fish on a good day. Then in '99, we started fishing seriously, fished every week for about 104 weeks in a row, sometimes 3 or 4 times a week. It was then that we developed most of the terminal tackle techniques and seasonal bait matching decisions that are used today by the successful Lake Anna striper fishermen.

Our success ratio went from 3 to an average of 8 stripers per outing, not including any undersized "punks". We appeared 7 times in "Woods and Waters" magazine between January of 2000 and October of 2002. We made 18 appearances on the "Fishing Report for Lake Anna" , were written up in the Central Virginian, the Lake Anna Observer, and our big fish pics were displayed in two issues of "Guide Lines" and in color advertizing brochures for a Lake Anna guide service.

During that time, we caught 3 fish in the elusive 20lb. class, and our single day record was 74 stripers (all released) and our best quality day was 16 stripers with a total weight of 121 lbs 7 oz. (fishing with my Dad and some friends).

I only fish occasionally for stripers now, I live on an island off the coast of Belize and spend my time scuba diving, and , of course, fishing.

Anonymous said...

Are you single?