Lela and Jim Haltergan

Cloudy and Warm, Water Temperature 85* and clear.

I picked Jim and Lela up at 5:30 at High point and took off to catch bait. Lela got up very early this morning so she decided to take a nap while we caught bait. I had a tank full of bait by 6:15 then made a short run to where I wanted to fish. I set out planner boards and downlines so I could determine where the fish were and it did not take long to find out. Once I got a board within 10 feet of the bank it got clobbered. It was only 6:30 and the fish were still right up on the banks. As Jim reeled the first Striper in I moved the boat closer to the bank to put the next board in the zone and it hooked up before we even landed the first fish. Jim hollered to Lela to wake up and grab yet another rod that was bent over. We boated these 3 Stripers and had to regroup rebaiting our rods. I also turned the boat around so I could put the other 5 boards up on the bank where we just caught our fish. It only took about 10 minutes to get back on the bank but this time our outer boards started hooking up. The fish had already pulled off the banks and moved to deeper water. That was fine with me, I had all my downlines ready so I turned again and headed to where I thought the fish would be heading. I had only gotten out a couple of downlines when both rods buried into the water. The picture of my Lowrance was taken as Jim was reeling in a downline. Before I could get more downlines out our boards started hooking up. Lela had laid back down and was sound asleep. We had rods bent all around the boat and Jim nor myself could wake her up. We did our best to get the fish in the boat but we could not handle the action. We lost the school while we were trying to get the boat straight and by the time we rebaited a boat drove by and spooked the school. We worked the area for a couple more hours only to catch 1 more fish. As usual for this time of year it is an early bite and the schools won't tolerate boats running over top of them. As you can see on my Lowrance the school of Stripers were literally stacked on this ledge coming out of 37 feet of water up on to a 15 foot flat.