Hello All,
Before I continue, thanks for all the veterans of this board posting and helping us novices out. =)
Okay, I have been fishing Lake Mead every weekend now since the end of September. And of those two of them have been night fishing trips. I have fished anchovies about 50% of the time, but we've only caught two small stripers on them while fishing the tires outside of the marina.
Both I and my fishing pal are trying it. He rigs with two hooks, the first is snelled to slide on the mainline, and hooks into the tail and the side. I single hook through the nose. We've drifted them at various depths with heavy and light weights, jigged, and trolled.
Our rattle shads and minnows flat line trolled have brought in probably 40-50 striped bass in the 15-17" range. I've tried 8-lb mono up to 25lb big game line on light spinning and heavy casting rods.
Could you share the way you rig up and fish with frozen anchovies? I want more than one tool in the shed to fish for stripers out here. (I've tried jigging for stripers to no avail as well, but I'll give it a few more shots to see what I can do with it.)
Thanks everyone!
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BTW, last weekend we started about 10:00am (late...). It was WINDY! I actually launched the boat out of the water, motor was screaming as the prop left the water, when a rouge wave hit the bow just right! [crazy] CRAZY
But we did manage to pick up a couple 17" stripers and another couple smaller 14" or so stripers. We were using suspending rattle minnows and a blue back-silver belly rattle shad trolled at 3MPH about 100' out up in the Las Vegas wash. One of the 17" pulled hard on my 8lb-test light spinning rod. It was fun.
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Hello Demolitron,
Sounds like you got the trolling down. The only thing I do different trolling is I use braided line 20 or 30 lbs but 10lb diameter. When I bait fish I use a 3 or 4ought hook. One per line. I first put a egg sinker on line first. Then a red bead. Then I tie the line to a small swivel. Then I tie a leader to the swivel and the other end to a hook. Main line 17lb test mono. the leader 10 or 12 lbs test. The bead protects the knot on the swivel and also makes an attracting noise when the sinker hits it. The swivel seems to keep the line straight and free from twisting. At night try out on Boulder Beach anywhere from 50 to 80 feet. I cut the head and tail off throw them over for chum. Then hook the body. Drop it to the bottom and then every few minutes reel up a few turns until you find what depth they are at.
If you don't get anything try a new spot chum a little and try again. Also remember stripers are like sharks they are always on the move looking for food. Sometimes if you wait they will show up. once they do throw out some chum to keep there attention.
All of my line for bait and trolling very. As the temperature rises line size decreases. It is winter fishing season now.The big ones come in and the little ones go deep.Hope this helps.
Stripercraze
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Fishing with anchovies is my specialty. First off, if you're fishing at night, you need to get closer to shore. That's just my experience. I believe this is because the stripers are waiting near the shoreline for shad and other bait fish. All I know is that 95% of my fishing at Mead in the last 2 years is done at night at the back of the houseboat. When anchored to the shoreline, the back of the houseboat goes out about 45' from the shoreline. This typically allows me to fish depths from 15' - 40'. I always look for deeper drops. Point is, you may want to get closer to shore. Say within 50' to 100' of the shoreline.
Chumming is an excellent idea if fishing is slow. If I have to chum, I usually chum about 4-5 anchovies cut into very little pieces. This time of year, I would venture to say that stripers are actually closer to the surface. This pertains to night fishing. They're usually in 10' to 15' below the surface.
For top water casting or simply dropping the line straight down, I rig my line the same way. I tie a no. 2 hook about 12" to 16" inches from a swivel on 15lb test. I then use 1 or 2 small lead ball bearing weights. My main line is 6 to 8 lb test. I use heavier line on the leader so that when I catch larger fish, the line doesn't break.
Good luck, I'm leaving for Mead on Saturday. Feel free to try out the AZ side of Mead. That's where I'll be for 8 days. Let me know if you need tips for fishing the AZ side.
Best regards,
Paul
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stripercraze has it down. This time of year, you can find stripers anywhere from a few feet deep, all the way down to 80 or 100 feet. Vary your presentation. Try drifting in 50 feet of water, and if you don't get hit, move to 70 or 80 feet. Don't settle down in one spot too long if you aren't catching fish. If you have a fish-finder, you can motor around until you find a school of shad balled up, or a few fish registering on your FF that are close together. Drop the anchovy down and wait. you can also take advantage of the jig bite in these situations. Spinnows do the job. Its like a jigging spoon, but the body is a fish-shaped hunk of metal that spins on the wire 'frame'. You can find those at local bait shops sometimes. Just don't give up. The fish are out there, you just need to find them. Stay on the move until you locate a school, and only fish there as long as you are catching fish. These schools of stripers will cruise along, so you need to keep up with them, or keep them in your range with chum. If you catch a fish, stop and throw out some chopped up 'chovies. That should keep them around for a few minutes. Keep throwing out some chum every 15 or 20 minutes, and you may keep them around for a while. Just remember, your biggest fish will most likely not come from soaking an anchovy. Get out the hardware and try to catch a biggun.
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Check this out to see the Spinnows. They really do the trick out at the lake.
[url "http://www.buzzbombzzinger.com/spinnow.html"]http://www.buzzbombzzinger.com/spinnow.html[/url]
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