StriperMemories

08/09/2024

It has been a while since I posted here but I have continued to fish on a regular basis at Tim’s Ford. Catching Hybrids and Stripers this summer has been a bit challenging although fishing has picked up during the past two weeks. We caught a lot of fish in June night fishing with Alewives. Catching the bait is about as much fun as the fish. Started out at dark by spot locking over 35’ bottom with deep water close by. Put out a white underwater light and the Alewives school up under the boat. The bigger Alewives come in later and deeper … using Sabiki rigs at about 20 feet deep to catch Alewives 4-6” in length. Alewives are as easy to keep alive as Shiners. Once I catch my bait, I prepare four down rods with Alewives at about 18 feet deep. I watch what is going on with Livescope. Without moving the boat, the light is turned off and most of the smaller Alewives stay in place. The larger Hybrids and Stripers move under the boat. They immediately find the baits and try to eat them. This time of the year when the water is hot the mortality rate appears to be 50% of those you throw back. For that reason, I limit myself to four fish per person. Your limit in TN is two fish per day. If you catch four fish and throw them back, two will live and two will die. The two dead ones constitute your state creel limit. Trip over!

03/30/2024

Friday on Woods …

06/21/2022

Blue Sky Hybrids

My fishing setup on the Blue Sky Boatworks 360 Pro is evolving as I get more experience fishing with it. This is the time of year I prefer fishing live Golden Shiners ( #20 - 3 1/2”). I am keeping them alive in an Engels 30 quart bait cooler with air pump. I purchased the model that includes four rod holders. When not using Livebait, the Engels unit serves as a live well. The cooler sits on the back porch and straps in place. I typically take four dozen Shiners on a morning trip. One of the changes I made from the previous trip was to add two additional back rods (two additional chances). I already had two Scotty tubes mounted to the rear track so it was an easy setup. Worked very well as you can see in the video! FYI, I keep the water in the 50 gallon Creek Bank bait tank at home at 62 degrees and fill the Engels unit from the bait tank. The bait stays lively all day. You might also notice in the video that I have removed the wheel system from the BSB … that is because I use a boat trailer for transport. My Ram 1500 gets the same gas mileage (20+ at highway speeds) with or without the trailer as long as the seat is removed.

https://youtu.be/OtdTLAjcZ1g

06/19/2022

Striper/Hybrid Fishing on Tims Ford Lake …

https://youtu.be/o5xidG8vaqI

01/01/2022

It is video time again … this was a Hybrid/Striper trip earlier this week. I was in the Nucanoe Frontier 12 and it was a one hour run each way to get to the fishing hole. My GoPro battery ran down in the middle of fighting the big fish … The Striper shown in the kayak was the smaller of the two!

This is a video from a recent Kayak trip on Tims Ford Lake. The Nucanoe Frontier 12 is equipped with the Motorguide Xi3 (GPS) and has a rudder at the stern....

10/28/2021

Here is a Urig video from a couple of years ago ... my guests are Captain Jim Durham (from Striperfun.com) and his wife Gerri. This video was created on Tims Ford Lake on a windy day in February. Great StriperMemories!

https://youtu.be/O2gZi3aNydw

This was a Urig trolling video from several years back. My guests were Captain Jim Durham and his wife Gerri. I was a very windy day at the end of February!

06/28/2021

Here is an interesting video catching Hybrids and Stripers from a Nucanoe Frontier 12 (with the Motorguide Xi3 trolling motor with Pinpoint GPS).

This is a live bait trip in my Nucanoe Frontier 12 kayak. Also includes Motorguide Xi3, Garmin Livescope Systerm (Echomap 106sv and LVS 32), and Bobo's Thum...

12/31/2020

Here are some photos this week. Fishing is very good!

08/18/2020

Great morning on Tims Ford with my friend Steve Yarbrough!

08/06/2020

Had a great morning on Tims Ford Lake on Wednesday. My guest on the StriperMemories boat was Jeff Bobo, the creator of the Bobo’s Thumper. We started out at daybreak by slow trolling gizzard shad at 13-14 feet deep, a normal cast behind the boat, and going 0.8 mph. We turned on the Bobo’s Thumper when we set the baits and did not turn it off until we were out of baits. We constantly had fish under the boat. You could see them on the 12” Raymarine Axion as well as the Garmin Livescope. We started the morning with 60 baits and finished with 0. Now these weren’t shad that you net and half of them die before the trip is over. These were gizzards purchased from Big Fish Outfitters over by Melton Hill Dam so they were excellent baits, even the very last one. I typically don’t post numbers of fish boated but you can assume that with pulling good bait over active fish, you will get bit on two out of three baits put in the water and should end up boating fish on one out of two baits. You can do the math. Largest fish was 10 pounds plus. Now, I was just the opening act for Jeff’s Tennessee Striper Trip. In the afternoon, he fished with Billy Davis (Melton Hill Bill) and caught his personal best Striper over 27 pounds, on the river. The small fish photos were with me and the large fish photo was with Billy!