Striper Trip Turned Crappie

[everythingthatswims]

   Went on a kayak fishing trip at Lake Anna on Saturday with my friend and my little brother. We planned on targeting stripers but the cold front messed them up, everyone we talked to on the lake was struggling with them. We marked plenty of bait and even found birds diving in the early morning but the birds did not have stripers with them, the baitfish were just on the surface. Jigged flukes and slab spoons, trolled deep cranks and an A-rig, and cast paddle tail swimbaits in areas with lots of bait as well as just covering water by trolling. I landed the only 2 stripers, a 15" and a 19" both on an A-rig. We did bass fish quite a bit, but the only fish landed were a 1lb or so fish on a shaky head, and a hefty 22", 5lb 6oz on a cranking rap by my friend (in true "One Fish Anna" fashion).

   The best part of the day was when we crappie fished, we worked docks and found the fish in 15-20 FOW, had to jig 2" straight tailed plastics on 1/16oz jigheads, took forever to get to the bottom but it was what they wanted. We landed at least 50-75 fish apiece, but most were too small to keep. We did find one good dock with lots of fish in the 9-10" range, I landed a good number of keepers and one that was 12", my brother caught his biggest crappie ever @14", (and also caught another 14"er on a 6XD while striper trolling!). Ended up with about 30 in the cooler, enough to send some home with my friend and still have plenty for a fish fry 

My brother's two 14" slabs

12"

15"

19"

22" 5lb 6oz

 

 

For anyone who wants to know we put in at Hunter's Landing and fished for Stripers from Days Bridge down to just beyond Stubbs Bridge. The crappies were caught within 2 miles traveling up lake from Hunter's.

[D805]

Nice catch. Never fished there. Need to go try to catch my first striper there. You got any tips

[A-Jay]

Pays to be adaptable ~ often salvages the day

 

Congrats

 

A-Jay

[Darren.]

Pays to be adaptable ~ often salvages the day

 

Congrats

 

A-Jay

 

Quite true. Has saved me from the skunk many times.

 

And to the OP, great trip, nice fish!

[jbw252]

Congrats on a great day.

[everythingthatswims]

Nice catch. Never fished there. Need to go try to catch my first striper there. You got any tips

Wait til the summer and get out there before daylight, troll deep cranks like 6XDs, DD22s, Bomber 18' fat free shads, etc. and keep a rod rigged with a super fluke on a 1/4oz jighead in case you see schooling fish (people say use weightless flukes and spooks but that doesn't work as well). They shut down for us around mid morning because of boat traffic, then we target the thousands of channel cats in there for a bit and then go to crappies on deep docks and bridge pilings. If I want to bass fish I don't go to Anna