Me and my friend Frank decided to go fish for stripers at O'Neil Forebay again.
I start off with the Sammy 128. This size is bigger than I usually use, but I was attempting to get some bigger stripers by using a bigger bait.
On my first cast I get a blow up. I miss two more blow ups shortly after, but nothing hooked up.
We moved down to another spot, and then my friend Frank starts laying into them. He caught 5 in a short period of time.
I kept getting the craziest blow ups, and one being literally right in front of me a few feet from the boat. I wanted to hook one up, but didn't mind watching the crazy blow up action either.
I ended the day with only two, but caught the biggest and only keeper for the day. A 17 and a 22 incher. My friend Frank caught all shakers - most of them in the 16-17 inch range - but he caught the most numbers with 8 landed in the boat. However, I certainly missed over 10 blow ups and my friend Frank missed many as well.
It didn't matter that the stripers were on the small side. Watching them blow up made up for it, but what's more, even though the stripers were small they still fight way harder than largemouth bass.
There was a lot of boats and kayakers out there today. I guess my reports have gotten attention and more people have been hitting up the Forebay. It didn't really matter though. Despite the massive pressure, we were the only ones catching fish as far as I could see.
The secret was that we were fishing topwater lures.
Topwater lures were king. No other lure got bit. We threw all kinds of hardbaits at them. Jerkbaits, lipless crankbaits, broken back rebels, and even crankbaits.
They only hit our topwaters. Lucky Craft Sammy and Gunfish were the hot baits.
I'm thinking about fishing the larger sized JitterBugs next time and see how it does and maybe even a Whopper Plopper.
Anyways, it was my first time trying out the Lucky Craft Gunfish today, and this is a fantastic lure! I personally like it over the Sammy now. This lure is so much fun to use. It walks even better than the Sammy, and you can make it skip like a rock with a nice jerk. The Gunfish is amazing! I highly recommend you try it.
Here are some pics we took today:
The PumpHouse:
My setups which consisted of..
- St. Croix Avid 6'6" Medium Fast Casting Rod paired with a Shimano Core 50MG7
- St. Croix Avid 6'9" Medium Light Spinning Rod paired with a Shimano Stradic CI4+ 2500 Spinning Reel
- Okuma Helios 7'6" Heavy Casting Rod paired with a Shimano Curado 200E7
- Powell Diesel 7' Medium Heavy Moderate Casting Rod paired with a Shimano Curado 200E5
My friend Frank with one of his 17 inchers:
Yours truly with the big fish of the day at 22 inches:
Haha, here's a short video of me and friend Frank acting like fools. My first YouTube video ever. I will be bringing a Go Pro next time. I will have to work out a lot of kinks and improve my video editing skills so things are going to look amateur at first, but it will come along with time and experience:
Give O'Neil Forebay a try. Good luck to you out there if you do.
Cheers!
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