After Christmas trip to Mead

[TT600]

I am planning to head to Mead around the end of the year. Put in at Echo. My tentative plan, wind cooperating, is to motor over to South Cove and troll for stripers. From reading here it seems most are using live bait which I have no way of getting. Any suggestions on trolling depth? Anyone been catching anything at Overton?
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[bassblaster]

I have fished there alot the last few winters. I don't know if waste the gas driving to south cove, there are lots of fish just south of echo. Downriggers at 25-50 feet with lucky craft lures were the go to, 3-4 MPH. If you are up for it buy a green light and fish at night with anchovies, lots of 1-3lb fish with an occasional 5 or so.
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[TT600]

I have tried fishing around echo with zero sucess. And I don't ever see anyone else fishing either. Where exactly do you go?
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[etrout72]

I can't really offer advice on the stripers up there as I've only caught one lately. Not what I was targeting,but I'm sure they're in the area. I've been fishing echo, from shore, about twice a week for the past couple of months with great success for largemouth and smallies.
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[fishrdan]

Last winter I night fished Echo and caught around 20 1-4#ers stripers each trip, 4 good trips and 1 bust trip. Idled around in 100-120' depth until I marked fish at 60-80', pitched an anchor, threw out lights, chummed and soaked chovies.

Kind of weird fishing smack dab in the middle of the lake, but it worked. A bit of breeze helped keep the fishing lines out of the anchor line, and luckily I didn't get blown out on any of the trips.

I was using high powered (home made) LED fishing lights, so that may have something to do with the success. Though, I have also used low power store bought fishing lights in shallower water (60') with good success too.

Christmas this year is going to have a full moon, and that's very bad for night fishing with lights as you are competing with the moon's light, a loosing battle against a full moon.... Fish early or late to avoid the moon if possible.
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[TT600]

I will bring some anchovies but I hate using those things. I am also bringing an umbrella rig.
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[Greg84]

[quote TT600]I will bring some anchovies but I hate using those things. I am also bringing an umbrella rig.[/quote]

Remember, anything with more than 2 hooks is illegal in this state.
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[07yzryder]

[quote Greg84][quote TT600]I will bring some anchovies but I hate using those things. I am also bringing an umbrella rig.[/quote]

Remember, anything with more than 2 hooks is illegal in this state.[/quote]

just to expand on this, you can have more then 2 lures on the umbrella rig but on 2 hooks per line. What i did when i ran an umbrella rig was cut off the hook and superglued the softbaits on the jigheads.
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[MOJAVE_RED]

Glass bottles are not aloud at the lake either , but that rule gets broken on a daily/weekly basis , i see the evidence every time i launch . Good luck fishing man !
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[TT600]

Had a pretty good trip. Not too windy. Caught one trolling in the narrows. Then headed to south cove. Near temple bar I saw some surface action and caught another. At south cove I caught a few more trolling. I had the best luck with silver CD rapalas. Fish seemed pretty shallow. The downrigger was a bust.
Every morning before sunup the stripers would boil in the coves on sandy point. Easy to catch from shore except for my hands freezing. We stayed there two days. I also caught more stripers trolling the basin there in the day. One/two per hour. Saw no boats there. Water was mid-upper 50s I would guess.
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[albinotrout]

Nice! Sounds fun.
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[wolfs4evr]

Glad you had a good time.

Tom
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