Jim Stryker

February 6th, 2009: Sunny and cold, Water Temps 41* to 47* and Clear.

I was a little concerned about today, a major cold front came through a couple of days ago, hasn't been above freezing for 48 hours. I thought bait and fish may be a problem so I got out on the water very early this morning and caught bait. It was only 14* and my boat was like a skating rink. Tried to get my spread out but as usual the fish wouldn't let me and I struggled to keep up with netting fish and putting lines out. Our first pass over a 20' point that dropped into 40' on both sides was the best, after the sun showed it's self fish went deep and stayed deep. We hit numerous flats , humps and points with little success. We kept seeing Stripers schooled on the bottom between 35 and 40 feet deep. We put downlines in their faces and caught a few of them, but none of any size. We caught only 15 Stripers today, I guess not too bad for the conditions. Jim is holding one of the fish we caught this morning.