I knew the srtripers in Claytor Lake and Virginia's Smith Mountain Lake would feed on the forage fish in these lakes. In the early days of Claytor Lake striper fishing , the only forage base was alwifes with Smith Mountain having alwifes , threadfin and gizzard shad.

I was young at this time , in my early twenties and fishing from an 18 ft. Winner bass boat. My father , uncle and another friend who was an exceptional angler were on a week long fishing trip on Smith Mountain Lake during the month of October. We had spent nearly three nights fishing with lures for the striped bass the lake was famous for , with very little success.

One day we decided to search the lake with our Lowrance flasher fishfinders to see if we could locate schooling stripers in an area and return to fish for them with lures after dark. We finally found a school holding in submerged trees in deep water in the mouth of a main lake cove. There were a lot of fish showing on the flasher units so we decided to try vertical jigging with Hopkins spoons. We started catching fish but they were coming slow. It was tedious work jigging the spoons up and down , and I started thinking how nice it would be to be able to fish a live shad over these fish. I had a small cast net of 4 ft. diameter in my boat , as we had been practicing in our back yard , learning how to get these things to open into a circle when thrown out.

I decided to try to find some bait , and motored to a creek in the upper end of the lake. I found some large schools of small gizzard shad working on the surface and finally caught a couple of dozen and dumped them in my live well. When I returned to our "honey hole" we simply caught fish after fish on these small shad , with no let up in the action , 'till our bait was depleted. This was when I truly became a live bait fisherman and little did I know at this time would eventually change the path of my life and lead me to be a professional striped bass angler and striped bass guide on four different lakes in two states.

Some people may frown on live bait fishing , but believe me , it is not as simple as it seems. In fact it is downright hard work. In order to be successful at live bait fishing you must not only know the habits of the striped bass , but the habits of the baitfish as well. You must also have the proper equipment to keep them alive and in good shape , as I have found stripers can be very finicky when it comes to taking a beat up , rough looking , scale-less bait. There are also several tricks you should master in presenting a live bait , but I shall cover that in future articles.

Knowing the habits of the bait you are pursuing at different times of the year is a must when trying to consistently fish live bait. This is a fact not lost on any guide using live bait. Keeping a supply of live bait is a pressure situation on a guide who is booked day in and day out. In my case , when I was guiding for a living , I fished live bait only and would catch it fresh every morning before I picked my clients up for the day. I did not live on the water and was forced to catch my bait early in the morning , sometimes starting at 1 AM. I was forced into learning the habits of both gizzard shad and alwifes as my paycheck depended on it. I never cancelled a trip for want of bait , although I have ran out of bait and had to take clients in early , but only after they had hammered the fish on the first tank of bait I had provided. Sometimes it is impossible to catch any bait at certain times of the year after daylight on the lakes I have guided on.

First and foremost , to be a successful bait fisherman you must learn how to throw a cast net. The bigger , the better. My preference is a 10 ft. Betts Super Pro with 3/8 inch mesh and ½ to 1 lb. of lead per foot. Some guys throw much bigger nets. This is up to the individual. Sometimes I use an 8 ft. net as I find I can throw an 8 footer for several hours if need be and not become too awful fatigued. As I said , it can be hard work.

You will also need a GOOD bait tank to keep your bait fresh and lively. There are several good ones on the market by Super Bait Tanks , Creek Bank Bait Tanks and others. I like the 35 gallon size but some prefer the larger 50 gallon size. The size of your boat will dictate the size of your tank. These are tanks designed for the serious bait fisherman that incorporate filters and aeration systems. Adding salt to the water of the tank is a must to keep your bait fresh and lively. I use the 40 lb. bags of water softener pellets. Use five small handfuls to 35 gallons of water. You must fill the tank with cold water. Well water works fine.

There are different types of baits you can use for stripers here in Virginia , but my favorite is a gizzard shad. During the spring , starting in late November to late March , I find gizzard shad in abundance in the upper ends of major creeks. I usually arrive on the water 2 to 3 hours before daylight. If you can't see the bait working the surface , you can usually find it by searching with your trolling motor and graph. Sometimes you just have to start humping the net , throwing in the blind until you hit the bait. But in general , in the early spring , work the backs of the creeks before daylight for gizzard shad in the 3 to 10 inch size range. You may also find alwifes , especially around any light shining in the water. This tactic holds true for the month of April also. If you run out of bait during the course of the day , go back to the creeks you had success in earlier in the morning. Search the shallows , sometimes you will see them darting by the boat. If there not in the shallows , you must find them on your fishfinder. Nine times out of ten , they will be holding in 15 to 30 feet of water. This is when the larger , heavier nets come into play. They sink fast enough to catch these deep water baitfish. A Betts 8 ft. diameter with 1 inch mesh works well here. It sinks fast , but is light enough to not be too much of a burden on you when retrieved.

During the month of May I find gizzard shad spawning in the upper ends of the rivers on Smith Mountain Lake and the creeks in the upper ends of the lake. I have found that the first hour or two of daylight is a good time to catch these spawners. You can usually see or hear them swirling on each other as they spawn. These are very pretty baits as they are pregnant with roe and are very appealing to stripers at this time. If you are on the water a few hours before daylight , so much the better , as you will here these baits spawning and will know where to cast your net.

Summer can be hit or miss when searching for gizzard shad as they tend to be scattered throughout creeks and the main body of the lake. Typically I start to work the backs of the creeks before daylight. The shad will be shallow , and it pays to throw the beam of a spot light across the surface ; if they are around you may see them lying near the surface or shooting out of the water as the light spooks them. You may find schools of shad after daylight by searching for their tell tale FLIP. They can be found anywhere at this time of year ; the backs of creeks , main lake points and flats and in deep water ¼ to ½ of the way back in coves. Look for FLIPPING bait. This is the give away as to their presence. I have also caught larger shad as far up a creek as I can get my boat , as they will search out cooler water in these areas. If you see a school of shad working a main lake point , you can just about bet there are stripers lying in deeper water off the point.

In the fall and winter months I still work the creeks of reservoirs I fish here in Virginia for gizzard shad. Lakes around the country in your area may be different, but I have used my bait catching tactics on reservoirs in Tennessee , Kentucky , South Carolina , North Carolina , Georgia and Virginia with great success. I have been on reservoirs that I had never been too before and been informed by the "local experts" that there were no gizzard shad in the lake , only to motor to the back of a creek on the upper end of the lake and find it thick with gizzard shad.

If you are serious about bait fishing for landlocked striped bass and have never tried it before , give these bait catching tactics a try. If you study the habits of the bait in your area you will also learn a lot about other species of fish as well. I have witnessed stripers , muskellunge , and trophy bass way up in the shallows of creeks emptying into a reservoir feasting on the abundance of gizzard shad to be found there. Chasing bait will definitely improve you as an angler.

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Michael King is a retired USCG liscensed striped bass guide and professional striped bass angler. He lives in Virginia with his wife Leslie and children Lydia and James. Visit his website GPSNAVPRO.COM.

During the early to middle '90s , before I had any thoughts of becoming a striped bass guide or professional striped bass angler , I used to pursue these tackle busting brutes solely at night with artificial lures. My all time favorite lure of choice was the Rebel 6" Spoonbill Minnow. My preferred colors where blue back with silver sides , black back and yellow back. Another of my favorite lures for night fishing for stripers was the Cotton Cordell Redfin.

I would normally start night fishing for stripers on my favorite lakes here in Virginia around the first week of March. The fish at this time of year would start to move up onto shallow points , into creeks and along flats to feed aggressively at night on baitfish. During March I would catch a lot of fish just before to right after dark with the bite moving later and later into the night as the season progressed to the spawn in May. You could always tell if hungry stripers were feeding in an area at night by the tell tale popping noises they would make on the surface when engulfing a baitfish. I would cast the Rebel to the sound along the bank in the dark and use an agonizingly slow retrieve to entice strikes from these large fish that were very wary in the shallow water. You would have to real the lure extremely slow , barely moving it. The explosive strikes would come without warning , sometimes right at the boat. This is very exciting action and anyone who likes to striper fish should try it.

During one fishing trip on Virginia's Smith Mountain Lake , I had left a friends house on the lake in my 20 ft. Winner bass boat around 12 A.M. The time of year was May and I proceeded down the lake to Cedar Keys cove where at this time the stripers would congregate to spawn in large numbers. As I approached "The Keys" , as the cove in Witcher Creek was called , I shut down the motor just before reaching the mouth of the cove and listened. I was in deep water and the banks here fell away sharply. As I listened into the night I could here the tell tale popping of some extremely large fish to my right. Apparently they had moved in on the spawning alwifes that were swirling right up next to the steep banks. The fish were enhaling them right against the banks as they were in there spawning frenzy

I moved in slowly with my electric trolling motor and positioned the nose of the boat toward the bank , enabling me to cast my Rebel parallel to the bank , up close , and slowly retrieve the lure back. The feeding was fast and furious and I was on pins and needles , expecting a massive blow up strike at any moment. After 45 minutes of repeated casting and many color changes , I was fishless and befuddled. The alwifes continued to spawn , making swirling sounds against the bank , and the stripers continued to blow up on them. I tried the Rebels in assorted colors and the redfins as well , but no luck. As I was digging through my tackle box in desperation I retrieved a tangle of lures and noticed a sound coming from the tangle that resembled the sound the alwifes would make when spawning on the surface.

As I untangled the mass of hooks and lures I found within a redfin I had forgotten about. It was a black backed and silver sided jointed model. I tied it on and tested it beside the boat. As I pulled it across the surface slowly I noticed it made a sound like the spawning alwifes on the bank. I repositioned the boat and fired a cast down the bank. About 4 cranks into the slow retrieve there was a monstrous blow up at the bait and I was into the first fish of many I would boat in the next hour. It was a wonderful night and I caught numerous fish over 20 pounds and one pushing thirty.

I stayed in the area until the action subsided and at this point I was tired , so I decided to lay down in the boat and rest my eyes for a while. I awoke to the sound of fish breaking and chasing bait on the surface. It was just at daylight and the stripers were breaking the surface all around my boat. I picked up my fishing rod and cast the redfin into the middle of the frenzy. The stripers would blow up on the plug and knock it out of the water , but I could not get a hook in one. The fish went down and gave me a chance to change lures to a large popping plug I had. A few minutes later they surfaced again and I cast the popper in amongst them. On the second chug of the popper a 20 lb. fish engulfed the bait and I had another fight on my hands. The fish went down before I boated and released this fish. It was over and they would not return. It had been a very good night and morning and I headed for the dock.

Whenever you are amongst fish and can not make them bite. Try different techniques and lures. Sometimes the small changes you make such as color or sound or even retrieve speed can be the difference between getting skunked and having a career trip.

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