Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
Landlocked stripers follow bait and water temperature, not structure. Threadfin and gizzard shad move as the lake's temperature changes, and the stripers move with them, shifting between flats, humps, points and the river channel. That is why a saltwater striper angler's instinct to fish docks, rocks and pilings fails on an impoundment.
Henry Cowen guides for landlocked striped bass on a large Georgia impoundment, grew up striper fishing the Northeast surf, and wrote a book on fly fishing for freshwater stripers.
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Why don't landlocked stripers hold on structure like saltwater stripers?
In the Northeast the same fish are called rockfish because they sit on bridge abutments, rock piles and pilings. Carrying that habit to a southern impoundment produced six months without a fish. The turning point came from watching gulls feed over a bare red clay bank on the opposite side of a cove from all the docks and blowdowns: the shad preferred the clay bank, and the stripers were with the shad, not the structure.
What controls where stripers sit in a lake?
Impoundments have no tides, so the tide-clock reasoning that works for coastal stripers does not transfer. Water temperature is the governing variable, because it dictates where the threadfin and gizzard shad go. Depending on temperature, stripers will be in the backs of creeks, up on the bank, in the river channel, on humps, on saddles, or on long tapered points that drop off, and those patterns rotate through the season in a predictable order.
Does the same striper pattern work in different states?
Anglers hundreds of miles apart in Georgia, Virginia and Oklahoma run the same sequence of patterns; only the calendar shifts. Water cools earlier further north, so the fall pattern arrives in Virginia first and Georgia follows. Coming out of winter it reverses, with Georgia warming first. Comparing notes across states amounts to asking where each angler currently sits on the same pattern sequence.
How do you find unmarked humps on a striper lake?
A hump is an underwater hill rising out of deep water, and stripers stack on them in September and October in 20 to 25 feet. The Corps of Engineers marks the shallow humps that come up to four to six feet as boating hazards, but humps topping out at 16 to 18 feet go unmarked and take almost no fishing pressure. Contour highlighting on a Humminbird LakeMaster chart solves this: set a 20-to-25-foot range and every hump in that band turns green while the rest of the lake stays blue.
Are stripers easier to catch in a river or a lake?
River stripers are considerably easier than lake stripers. A river is small enough that the fish have few places to hide, so they concentrate in the deeper water: if the river averages two and a half to three feet, the fish will be in the four-, five- and six-foot holes or near a creek mouth. On a lake every acre looks the same, which is what intimidates newcomers to stillwater striper fishing.
What equipment do you need to fly fish for stripers on a lake?
Two items are non-negotiable on an impoundment: an electric trolling motor and a good combined GPS and fish finder. Every major brand builds a competent sonar unit, so the differentiator is the mapping software rather than the sonar itself. The boats in use range from kayaks and micro skiffs through bass boats, flats boats and pontoons to a 22-foot center console rigged like a redfish boat with fore and aft casting decks.
How do you learn a new striper lake quickly?
Start with the conventional anglers rather than the fly shop, and specifically the ones throwing artificials rather than bait, because their lure depth tells you which water column to match with your fly line. Then build a small network of two or three anglers fishing different days and share what each of you found; one blank day in the backs of the coves plus one good day out on main-channel points identifies the current pattern faster than fishing alone.
Key takeaways
- Landlocked stripers key on shad location, which is set by water temperature, not on visible structure.
- September and October fish hold on humps in 20 to 25 feet of water before the top-water season starts.
- Unmarked humps topping out at 16 to 18 feet get almost no pressure; marked ones are boating hazards at four to six feet.
- Contour highlighting on lake mapping software makes every hump in a chosen depth band visible at a glance.
- River stripers are easier than lake stripers because a river gives the fish far fewer places to hold.
- Match the depth conventional anglers are working with artificials, then match the bait with a fly rather than a lure.
