Fulfilling A Dream: Breaking the 30 Pound Barrier

Any time I get to fish with my life-long friend Corey Galloway is a special event where fellowship, fun, and crushing a Mexican lager or three takes precedence over the size or number of fish caught. Our schedules miraculously aligned on a weekday and we floated a 5-mile stretch of a secluded tributary off Lake Weiss, Alabama. With Corey moving jobs and cities and me about to welcome my first child into the world, I only anticipated having one last hoorah with my friend before the duties of fatherhood slowed my River Stalking expeditions. I would never have believed that I would break my all-time, personal record for striper and finally break the 30 pound barrier on a skinny tributary off Lake Weiss a full month past striper season. Life is funny like that, I pressed myself for two years hunting trophy striped bass with swimbaits only to be rewarded with my largest ever striper when I wasn't even trying.

We braved a sketchy put-in and take-out to launch amidst old tires, broken glass, graffiti, and other debris to drop into some prime, but off color water. I got on the board first with a fat, fat, fat spot that choked a vibrating jig-swimbait combo. This is a really cool combination I have been tinkering with. The vibrating jig-swimbait offers a ton of thump and vibration for swimbaiting in off-color water. This stud spotted bass charged from under and overhanging log and smoked a Bobby D's grinder-Big Hammer combo. Bobby D's baits are what Clark Rheem uses and offer a quality hook and wire tied skirt; a much, much better alternative to the Z-man "original" Chatterbait. I still don't understand how the "original" is the lousiest offering on the market. The Dobyns Champion 765 Flip is the perfect rod for controlling the heavy, thumping rig. Look for more to come on my experimentation with the vibrating jig-swimbait combo as I stocked up on Roboworm 6" saltwater swimbaits.

Corey put in some nice work with plastics and crankbaits. His Bandit 200 scored most of his fish, but he picked up one or two flipping plastics as well.

We caught them on just about everything early, but a strong midday sun drove the fish deep in cover and I had to extract them with the heavy stuff. They were chewing hard and I caught fish flipping into the nasty stuff for a couple of hours until I ran out of a hematoma Big Bite Bait fighting frogs. Flipping is one of my favorite techniques, a close second to swimbait fishing, because it is a consistent big fish producer. Dobyns 735, 65 pound braid, a pegged 1/2 ounce tungsten sinker, and a stout hook are the way to go. I actually prefer ewg hooks with a keeper like the this over a straight shank flipping hook. The BBB fighting frog is real sleeper bait, the frog moniker throws you off, but it is super weedless, super dense, and has some nice action.

I tend to fish fast and up front, which doesn't often make many friends so I let Corey take point for a while and fish clean water. He scored a few nice fish and I followed up any fish he missed with a fluke. Fluke fishing is now one of my favorite techniques. It is a search bait, finesse bait, power fishing tool and a killer follow up bait. If you are ever fishing behind a good fisherman, toss a fluke in behind them and anything they miss will absolutely demolish your fluke. I find that if a fish boils on a bait, slashes at a bait, or follows a bait, they are interested, but in an overall neutral mood. Dropping a wounded bait-fish imitator on their noses will often entice a strike from non-committal fish. Corey was working an outside bend with a California swim jig-ez shad combo when a big fish slashed at his bait. I fired a white fluke back to the bank worked it back with frenetic rod tip twitches. This big spot charged from cover and choked the fluke.

Half  way through the trip Corey bagged a couple of nice striper on the Bandit 200. I will never be a great bass fisherman solely for the reason that if there is a .0001% chance of catching a striped bass I will abandon all bass techniques and chase the striped ghosts with reckless abandon.

Luckily, I had packed my a-rig box in the off chance a striped bass presented itself. 65# braid, 5 swimbaits, and a sore arm bought me a slew of stripe bass between 2 and 10 pounds. The action was fast and fun, so I didn't take too many pictures of the cookie cutter fish. The Yumbrella loaded with 5 Netbait BK Swimmers was the magic ticket and kept me in constant action. Striped bass love a slow rolled umbrella rig. Hangups are a constant in a shallow, woody river so here are a few tips to maximize fishing time and minimize time spent yanking on stumps. Downsize your jig heads to 1/8 or even 1/16. I buy bulk 1/8 jig heads from Barlows, but WalMart carries Lucky Strike jig heads in 1/16 ounce with a 1/0 hook. These are excellent for shallow water umbrella rigging as they are stout enough to hold big fish, but will bend out when snagged. No stretch braid is also key as it allows you bend out jig heads lodged in timber and reel into hooksets, rather than swing for the fences. Striper will hook themselves on umbrella rigs, so by the time you feel the strike, the fish is already hooked and turning the other way. By reeling into the fish you eliminate false hooksets that drive barbs deep into log jams, so freeing snagged baits is as easy as paddling to the other side of the object and shaking your rod tip. The weight of the other 4 baits usually frees the snagged one.

Then, after some technical difficulties which included Corey using my best rig for a shallow water anchor and then busting off a very, very strong fish I never saw, I stuck a "healthy" one. This fish is by-far my largest striped bass ever and I have a feeling could be one of the larger striped bass to come out of Lake Weiss on artificial. This fish easily broke the 30 pound mark I had failed to reach two years in a row. She possibly topped forty pounds, but I rarely carry a scale. Weight is just a number to me anyway. This fish is a trophy, the trophy, I have stalked since I began striped bass fishing in 2009. The strike was something akin to swinging a Louisville Slugger into a Tim Hudson fastball. I was standing up working the head of a deep pool when the leviathan broke one off in my Yumbrella rig. The fight was of epic proportions, dragging me across the river and back again as I stood balancing on the deck of the paddle board. She made two drag smoking runs towards nasty-looking wood cover where I had to thumb-lock the spool and pray it held. I finally got her boat side where she had one, bent out hook hanging in for dear life. It took three tries to hoist her up onto my lap as the side of the board kept dipping under and taking on water. She immediately went on the fish grips and into the water where I kept her turned upright for about thirty minutes. I crushed a Mexican lager tried to settle my shaking hands. After walking her around in the shallows, she swam back off into the cold, creek water to, hopefully, grow into the next state record.