A fish story with some pictures

[TnRiver46]

My buddy met me at the boat launch after work and we start out about 6:00. The previous day had been slow action trying to find white bass but I was still marking some glued to the bottom so I figured let’s go to the same spot and rile them up today. On the way upstream, I stopped at a spot I had marked white bass before just to check, didn’t even really think about it. Sure enough the graph lights up with gobs of them. We start catching a few, nothing crazy and all of a sudden you can hear what sounds like a 26 lb largemouth blowing up a frog. Gadoosssshhhh gadoooosh!!! Holy crap where is that and where is my topwater?? We see what looks like a white shark eating a seal and slam the boat in gear headed that way. Methinks we have a large striped bass trying to eat a skipjack........... Just as we get about halfway to the frucus a bald eagle swoops in and takes the skipjack and flies away. Hmmmm. We had been seeing that bird already but that was still pretty cool. I’m wanting my buddy to hook up on this thing because I don’t think he has ever caught one but he’s got about 50 ft of line on his baitcaster armed with a spook. I also grab a cheap walking bait and we cast around to no avail. Back to jigging up white bass for about an hour and we hear it again, except about 15 or more consecutive times. And we can see it! Honestly there appeared to be maybe a few stripers but water is flying everywhere. This time I said to heck with stealth mode and slammed the throttle right toward everything. Sure enough a great blue heron is hovering above it all trying to get the skipjack. We try to scare him off and chuck the spooks all around the struggling skipjack while he is being nibbled constantly by the fish. No hits. How it this possible. We tried to catch the skipjack with plugs and bare hands as he swam by the boat several times, still nothing. I remembered I had some big cotton Cordell redfins under the deck in My jerkbait box. I tied on the “ghost of Christmas past” as my friend calls it and the striper blew it up on top a few casts later. I’m not sure how big this fish was but it may be the biggest of my life! Captured with 12 lb mono, regular clinch knot, dirt cheap 7’ rod, and a pflueger reel my buddy gave me! Hahaha. I’d rather be lucky than good any day. I also got a good screenshot of the white bass schools

[A-Jay]

Nicely Done ~ ! 

Tank of a lineside right there.

Bet that was fun on 12 line.

Congrats

A-Jay

[NYWayfarer]

Nice Striper!! Well done!

[TOXIC]

Tackle buster right there!!  I'm sure the Bill Dance hat helped!!  We call them Albino Racing Bass!!

[Jigfishn10]

A tank for sure @TnRiver46! If you got a length on it, you can pretty much go pound for inch to get you close.

 

Those on fun on light gear for sure, basically is what I use striper fishing in the bay in ME.

 

Congrats my friend!

[Mike L]

What a Stud!!

Great job!

 

 

 

 

Mike

[TnRiver46]

1 hour ago, Jigfishn10 said:

A tank for sure @TnRiver46! If you got a length on it, you can pretty much go pound for inch to get you close.

 

Those on fun on light gear for sure, basically is what I use striper fishing in the bay in ME.

 

Congrats my friend!

He was pooping and trying to impregnate me so I got him right back in the water haha. No measurement or weight unfortunately 

[A-Jay]

1 minute ago, TnRiver46 said:

He was pooping and trying to impregnate me 

May want to rethink your choice in fishing partners . . . 

A-Jay

[Jigfishn10]

11 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

He was pooping and trying to impregnate me so I got him right back in the water haha. No measurement or weight unfortunately 

Not a visual I could use now...

9 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

May want to rethink your choice in fishing partners . . . 

A-Jay

Absolutely, 100%!

[Crestliner2008]

Awesome CPR success! Congrats!

[TnRiver46]

48 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

May want to rethink your choice in fishing partners . . . 

A-Jay

Hahahahah all my friend said “why didn’t you keep it” and I replied that 1.5 minutes in the boat was enough with that thing . I went to plug in the batteries on my boat this morning and the mess he left on the back deck was vile. Vile I tell you 

[Tennessee Boy]

Wow!  very nice fish.  

 

Bill Dance has been demonstrating the power of the Tennessee cap for decades and it’s still the biggest secret in fishing.

[Bankbeater]

Wow! What a fish, congratulations!

[N Florida Mike]

Nice fish and cool story. 

[GreenPig]

Very nice! Good thing you got pics I'm sure you'll forget that battle soon. 

[deaknh03]

23 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

He was pooping and trying to impregnate me so I got him right back in the water haha. No measurement or weight unfortunately 

can you fele the baby kicking?

[Dwight Hottle]

Sweet!

[Paul Roberts]

Wow. Doesn't matter what it weighed. Great fish, great story. Great images too.

[Bluebasser86]

Great fish! Stripers are so much fun, I wish we had some around here. 

[TnRiver46]

On 4/6/2019 at 11:11 PM, Bluebasser86 said:

Great fish! Stripers are so much fun, I wish we had some around here. 

Thanks! The cool part is they don’t even stock them where I caught it! But they do in the lake above and below so they have been there for years 

[Paul Roberts]

I love Stripers too. I used to fly-fish them along the NE coast. I would also sometimes bring a passel of FF addicted kids along. And we'd read passages from "Striper Moon", by J Kenney Abrams, in the van on the way. Then, we'd fish the after-dark tides and moons, and sleep in between, what we called "Striper Time". One morning, a kid climbed out of the tent, rubbed his eyes, and said, "Are we ready to go?" The reply was, "Dude, it's 9AM." Get some sleep. "Holy... , Really??!" That boy was deep into Striper Time. Totally good for them. Although it did make readjusting to home and school life a little rough. :))