Fishtales
February 15, 1998
The waters below Pickwick Dam in Tennessee are a great fishing hole and Jim Pope takes advantage of it.
Stripers from the Bank
Jim Pope
The striper, or rockfish, as it is often called, may be the strongest freshwater fish to inhabit our lakes and rivers. Having evolved in the oceans, it needed strength and speed, not only to catch prey, but to avoid being eaten by the many large predators of the deep. Fresh water fishermen can now experience the fighting power of the once saltwater fish. Standing on the bank next to the torrential flowing of mass quantities of water with a big striper hooked up will make anyone forget what happened at the office earlier that day.
It happens in the fall. The fall season seems to have a magical way of ending the summer. Many of us begin to prepare ourselves for the fall and winter feasts to come. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day are three which initially come to mind.
Have you ever wondered why the biggest eating holidays happen in the fall and early winter? Maybe it is because that is the way nature works, especially in the aquatic world. For some strange reason, huge schools of baitfish begin to gather together and wander about exposing their vulnerability. Why would they do that? Probably for the same reason that blackberries get ripe in July. They are the fruit of the waters, and their enormous numbers are easy pickings for the many hungry mouths on the opposite end of a powerful broad tail.
The tailwaters of hydro-electrical dams seem to play the piper's tune to river stripers. There are times when the surface is alive with stripers chasing shad. More often, however, the stripers hover in the current just waiting for a meal to pass by. This is the time for some great fishing action.
Fishing from the bank, this fisherman has experienced many bone jarring strikes while retrieving a big bucktail jig or plastic twister. Heavy casting spoons are also very effective. My choice of gear is a nine foot surfing rod fitted with an Ambassador 6000. Seventeen to twenty pound test line will usually do the job. The large, heavy spinning guides on my surfing rod have been replaced with smaller, lighter, guides to match the level wind reel. A 1 oz. jig can be cast a mile (well almost), and the long rod can be held high to keep the line from getting caught up in the current.
The weight of the jig head has to be matched with the current of the moment. If the jig is too heavy, it will quickly contact the bottom and get hung up in the rip rap which is below most hydro-electric plants. If it is too light, the current will simply wash it downstream and not allow it go deep enough. It usually does not take long to figure out what size to use.
A bank caught striper is much harder to land that a boat caught one. The advantage a boat fisherman has is that the boat is drifting downstream with the fish. A twenty pound fish can be landed rather easily from a boat. The real fight is when a bank fisherman hooks up with a good fish. The fish has the advantage of using the massive force of the current along with his enormous power to put on a fight and a half.
Although these eating machines grow to over 50 pounds, the largest striper this writer has been able to land weighed 25 pounds. It was caught on the rig described above on a hand-tied 1 1/4 oz. white bucktail jig. The 17 lb. line seemed like a sewing thread when the fish made it first run. Any fisherman can relate to the feeling.
Just knowing that a personally made artificial lure had fooled the big fish was more than gratifying. It was heaven. The ripe fruits of the water make for some wonderful arm-breaking action, and anyone having the opportunity to sling big jigs from the bank into the swift striper infested tailwaters of a hydro-electric dam should give it a try. All one has to do is catch one good fish, for surely there is another one there even bigger.
