What year did you catch your first Striper on a fly?

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Terry Thomas found an old 1980 issue of "Flyfishing the West" by Frank Amato.

There is an article in it by our friend Jack Parker from Roseville, CA about fly fishing for Stripers around Sacramento. Joe Shirshac and I are featured in the article.

We actually caught our first Stripers on a fly out of an anchored boat at the mouth of the American River around 1970 with coaching from local Striper 'commando' Al Perryman. That was 37 years ago.

See, nothing is new.

[lee s.]

Oh man! Don't ask. :wink:
.....lee s.

[JerryInLodi]

Hey Bill, how long have people been fishing for shad with flies. I'd guess that the first stripers caught on flies were incidental catches while people were fishing for shad.

[Darian]

Caught my first Striper around 1966 in Big Sur while surf fishing (with bait) for barred perch. 8) 8) It was about 12" in length and was immediately released.... :lol: :lol:

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Right Jerry

Lots of folks have caught Stripers while fly fishing for American Shad.

I heard a report once that a group of veteran Lodi fly fishers where all wading the sand bar at the mouth of the Feather River for Shad and a big school of Stripers must have come in and they hooked a bunch on Shad flies. This was a long time ago and during a drought cycle.

Our friend Ron Hayashi, retired merchant marine, hooked a 40 pound plus Striper out of his pram at the mouth of the Feather River on a Shad fly a long time ago. It was the IGFA fly record on 8 pound test and maybe still is?

I use to have a VHS of a friend, Tom Hayder, who had a Striper eat his Shad and spool him by Goethe Park some years back. During the Shad run we usually try to find it and play it a bit.

[J.R. Hubbard]

Stripers are my enemy!

I have been fly fishing for about 3-4 years now, but I have fished a ton and spent a LOT of time fishing with guide Bill Lowe (20 times last year alone). I have been Striper fishing about 15 times, and I have NEVER caught and landed a Striper! They are my unicorn. I've caught Steelhead, trout, fished in Baja and done well with all of them....but I can't get Stripers to play the game with me!!

Thanks for bringing up a painful memory! :wink:

This year it will happen for me.

[Jgoding]

I caught my first striper on a fly last year (a rough and tough 6" dink) and even my PB of a beautiful 28"er. My last fish of the year was a 16" I took while throwing a deep sheep for half pounders...
I hope to catch many more this year...

Jeff

[David Lee]

Our friend Ron Hayashi, retired merchant marine, hooked a 40 pound plus Striper out of his pram at the mouth of the Feather River on a Shad fly a long time ago. It was the IGFA fly record on 8 pound test and maybe still is?

Yup - Ron still holds the 8 lb. record . My October , 2004 fish was right around the same size , perhaps slightly larger . I hope to God that Ron has this record 500 years from now - fish this size are not too common there days .....

Here's the big one - I couldn't bring myself to kill this fish .

http://img.inkfrog.com/pix/fadoe/926c.jpeg

http://img.inkfrog.com/pix/fadoe/3524.jpeg

http://img.inkfrog.com/pix/fadoe/5547.jpeg

http://img.inkfrog.com/pix/fadoe/a615.jpeg

http://img.inkfrog.com/pix/fadoe/aa4a.jpeg

My first Stripe on fly came in 1997 ?? Just above the Black Bridge ..... a herd of Diaper-Stripes came thru , and my biggest was about 14 inches .

I still could not be more happy about that day .

David :D

[JerryInLodi]

By the way for those reading, the fish are waking up. I caught two on Monday in an hour after work and another two on Tuesday in an hour after work. I've heard of a few double digit catches in the first two days of this week, unfortunately no fish over 4 pounds included but many 20-22 inchers.

Time to go striper fishing. See you on the water this weekend. Bring your rain gear.

[k.hanley]

Mine was in San Francisco Bay (along the "Showboat" stretch). Back in the late 70's. On foot. At night. On an all black deceiver.
Cheers, Ken

[Katz]

David, would you mind sharing a few details about the catching of that beautiful (monster) striper. :shock:

I know we all dream about one that big and I would love to add a few details to my daydream about that one! :)

Thanks.

Katz

[Mike McKenzie]

was in October 1966...caught it while fishin' top water water for largemouth in Whiskey Slough..It was 31" long, didn't have a scale in those days. Probably 12lbs...Forgot about largemouth fishin' after that! (for a while anyway :D )

[David Lee]

David, would you mind sharing a few details about the catching of that beautiful (monster) striper. :shock:
I know we all dream about one that big and I would love to add a few details to my daydream about that one! :)
Thanks.
Katz OK , my friend !

I was 'grab-baggin' - swinging 'food' for whatever was in my run . The fish bit , I thought a small (12-15 lb. King) .... I simply beat the crap out of it - I've caught several hundred Kings before , so I wasn't worried about losing another Salmon ....

Beat the fish for about 10 minutes ..... then , it rolled - I thought "Nice !! Bright fish !!" - one more run , I checked it .... then ... saw the SHAPE .

I thought 'Oh , shit ....'

Pulled her from the water , she was quite heavy . Flopped onto the bank , took five shots of her , then back into the water . Couldn't have been out for more than 20 seconds ...??

A lady comes down the bank .... she can't quite believe what I'm hanging on to - I tell her it's a BIG Stripe - it didn't dawn on me to pass the camera to get the 'hero' shot ..... I rock her back and forth .... she pulls hard , then gone .

I NEVER would have landed that fish had I have known what I had - I just thought a fresh-run small King . The fly was a #6 Olive Crystal Bugger , tippet was Seagaur 8 lb. , rod was a Fenwick Eagle 7 wt. , and the reel was an OLD 1495 .

Best guess (by the rod/reelseat measurements) is 46-49 inches , 44-48 lbs . A nice suprise , to say the least !!!!!!

David :D

[flygolf]

David you da man!!! Awesome fish. My first stripe on the fly was summer of '99.

[David Lee]

David you da man!!! Awesome fish. My first stripe on the fly was summer of '99.

Right .

Every few years ... someone figures out the spots/retrieve , and spends the TIME on the water ....

Flygolf (Mark) has been the TOP ROD for 2005/2006 - Anthony has been in the running , as well .

When those two guys talk about wading for Stripes .... LISTEN very closely - they KNOW how to play the game :idea: :idea: :idea:

David :nod:

[Katz]

Thanks David!

Amazing how leaning on them relly works sometimes. Especially when you think it's something else.

I remeber deep sea fishing in my teens and I was so afraid of loosing anything that I always kept the drag really loose. Lost a lot of fish that way.

Katz

[David Lee]

Funny stuff , Katz .....

Every time I hear someone tell me that I NEED #20 lb. to beat a 12 lb. fish ..... I just grin .

I dare ANYONE to pull more than 8 lbs. on an 8 wt. rod with a bend in it - Even with a 20 lb. tippet on a 12 wt. rod ..... Harro couldn't break 13 lbs. . I've tried to smash 10 lb. tippets on an 8 wt. , and I PULL . It ain't gonna happen .

Do this - set your 5 wt. w/ a 6 lb. tippet , tye your best knots , and have a friend hold the digi-scale . I'll lick your feet if you can break said tippet with more than a 30 degree bend in that rod . Most Flyfishers have NO IDEA how much pressure can be applied with the right knots .

Try it sometime - you'll be suprised .

David :)

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

The first people around Sacramento who were seriously fly fishing for Stripers were Al Perryman, Jim Potter, Larry Cullens, Al Fong and Cal Guin. We learned the basics from them.

These guys all fly fished from small prams for salmon, steelhead, shad and stripers in Nor Cal starting in the 1960s. I never saw or heard of them fly fishing for anything small like trout much.

I know Hal Janssen fly fished for Stripers in the Bay 'way back when'.

Outdoor writer Larry Green wrote about fly fishing in the Bay years ago.

Back in those days we did not believe you could catch a Striper in the day time on a fly. This was a popular belief by most Striper fly fishers. In the past few years this has been disproved.

We fished early and late with white flies and all night long with black flies.

We mostly used Mustad 3407 cadmium plated hooks and they desperately needed to be sharpened with a file.

We used large 9 weight fiberglass fly rods with 30' shooting heads and lead core heads.

We had to also learn how to 'strip-strike' the Stripers to get the hook to penetrate their jaw.

The two most popular place to fly fish for Stripers (and Shad) back then in April, May and June was the mouth of the American River and the mouth of the Feather River.

We would Shad fish in the day time and Striper fish at night.

In the past 5 years or so fly fishing for Stripers has gone wild in Nor Cal.

[lee s.]

Hey David,
We just exploded the spool on a 1495 today on a wild buck steelie with an 8# tippet. :shock: Yahoo! \:D/
.....lee s.

[Katz]

I totally agree. We catch salmon in the feather in august on 8-10# tipet with an 8 wt rod. I have pulled has hard as possible on those fish and never lost one to the line. Have broken one rod, but never the tipet.

That, and I want no part of you liking my feet. Wife's the jealous kind :D

Katz

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

In the 1980s Joe Shirshac took hundreds of fly fishers to the Brooks River in Alaska in July for the fresh run Sockeye Salmon which ran 4 to 8 pounds and bigger.

There were big Brown Bears there that eat many salmon. Anglers are fishing right with the bears which is pretty wild.

Joe figured out that 8# Maxima was the heaviest tippet material they could use and still break off a salmon when the bears were chasing them.

Sounds pretty scary to me.

__________________________________________________ _________

One of our friends returned from the trip to the Brooks and handed me the bottom of his fly rod. All that was left was ~13" of the butt section with only the cork grip and reel seat plus the fly reel and some backing.

He said a big Brown bear was chasing his salmon so he ran back up to the bank and tried to break the fish off. He snapped the rod right above the cork and the front of the rod went down the line toward the fish.

He still couldn't break off the fish so he took his knife out and cut off the fly line.

I guess it was a pretty wild incident?

[Dave Sellers]

Bill, great question.

I've long since given up shameless bragging on the internet, even though it's in my nature! :D But this year I passed two milestones, so what the hell.......

My first fish was caught on Dan Blanton's brand new boat "Prime Time". It was the very first fish caught on Prime Time back in 1997, ten years ago. Dan was incredibly patient with me and my uspeakably bad casting and did everything he could think of to get me on a fish. Finally, he set me up on a weed edge that I could reach with my 30 foot corruption of a fly cast and I hooked a two pound striper. Within a year I purchased my own boat which I named "Juney" and on January 31, 2007 I passed the 15,000 striper mark on "Juney" (this is the boat total). 15,000 fish in 10 years are my two milestones. I'm an unapologetic fish counter (primarily because I have kept a detailed journal for most of the past 10 years.) The lions share of the fish came out of San Luis. The years I really put time into the lake include some of the best fly fishing years that lake has ever seen. Hundred fish days on schoolie bass were not uncommon and many days included over a dozen fish above 10 pounds. That was a special time at the lake! My largest fish was 48 inches, out of San Luis, my largest Delta bass was 40 inches and the largest fish taken on Juney was Matt Havelock's 58 incher out of the delta.

The combination of a fantastic mentor, Dan Blanton, loads of free time and a lot of great fishing buddies equals wonderful memories of fun days of fishing. With my "earning years" threatening to cramp my style fishing-wise I had to jump on your question, Bill and use it as a flimsy excuse to reflect on one hell of a lot of fun over the past ten years. Long live stripers!

Dave

[JerryInLodi]

I certainly agree about tippet strength. I use 15# Maxima, not so much for fighting fish but for pulling the fly through junk I hook up on while fishing. The weeds are the delta are really thick in some areas and sometimes you really need to drop the rod tip and pull hard just to drag through.

I know I could shatter my 9 weight easily if I tried to put 15 pounds pressure on a tippet using the rod flex alone.

[Flycanoe]

Well, haven't caught one yet, I am 0 for 1 on my striper fly fishing trips last year. But I recently attended a striper fly fishing seminar by Bill Nash with my local fly club and got a lot good advice. So I hope get my first one this spring once the bite gets going.

[Dave Sellers]

Regarding tippet strength and rod breakage.........

While it's true that a relatively light tippet to can break a rod, that's not where a catch and release big game angler should focus his attention.

Typically tippets above 10 pound class arn't at much risk with any sized striper, as long as there isn't much around in the way of structure or weeds. You can easily break a rod on 10 pound tippet. However, that's not where tippet comes into play. Tippet strength is most valuble when a big fish takes a fly at the boat and you don't have time to let the line go fast enough..........10 pound or even 20 pound will snap in an instant when it's "straight lined" (even for a split second) on a big bass. Or, if you need to straightline to avoid structure, you are at much greater risk of losing a trophy bass if you put your confidence in a tippets ability to break a rod and leave it at that. But more importantly, when you want to land a fish , particularly when he's at the boat near the end of the fight, you don't want to mess with light tippets. This is because you want to grab the line and pull the line toward the boat with the fish attached and not have to let it go every time the fish surges or turns his head. This will needlessly drag on the fight and risk a belly up bass and keep you from getting back in the game. I personally don't use anything less than 20lb mono with a bimini for stripers. It just makes for more fun. Less time out of it and more confidence that the resource is left undamaged.

Tippet strength should be discussed in the context of it's greatest exposure to failure (for the reasons I outlined)...........and if a bent rod is in the equation, you're no where near red line.


Dave

[Mike McKenzie]

Well, I can't resist since this thread turned into a discussion on tippet or leader strength. I think that most of you folks are kinda' missing the point I made on another post. It ain't about whether or not you can break certain test leader with a what ever wt rod with this or that much bend in the rod. It's about how long it takes to get a big striper to hand and released so it doesn't die because of what you do. In most instances of too long of a fight with a large striper, the odds are the fish will die regardless of the fact that it swam away "OK" and especially in water temps above the upper 60's. As alluded to in a post above big stripers are getting pretty rare these days. So why put them at risk by fishin' with light tippets?? In order to get the fish to hand in a timely manner sometimes "draggin' the sucker in" by pointin' the rod at the fish and pullin' as hard as you can is what it takes. Don't tell me you can't break a an 8 or 15 lb tippet pullin on a fish this way. I've had numerous big stripers break 20 lb straight leaders (and not at the knots!) by gettin' in a little bit to much of a hurry and tryin' to drag them in within the first minute or two, a little bit too soon! Again, rod size/wt doesn't matter but tippet size does. People talk about landing big stripers with 8 lb tippets etc. but they don't say how long it took to get the fish to hand. You can't drag a big striper in fast enough with lite tippets, if you are doing things right (speed wise) you'll get broke off every time. If it takes you 8-10 minutes or longer you might as well take it home and eat it because even if the fish swims away it will probably die with in a day or two.

Here's a quote on the subject from the July 2006 Fly Rod & Reel magazine..
" Several years ago, a study by Mark Malchoff of New York Sea Grant did indeed determine that striped bass, particularly the older larger fish, would die two to three days after release due to lactic acid build up.
What is lactic acid build up? Physical exertion from a particularly long fight causes an oxygen deficiency in the tissue, forcing the muscles to function without oxygen (anaerobically) which in turn causes lactic acid build up in the muscle tissue which diffuses into the blood. This subsequently causes the pH in the blood to drop. Even slight changes in pH can cause disruptions of the metabolic processes which may ultimately kill the fish. If the fish is handled little and released quickly, its blood pH usually returns to normal and the fish survives. But, while fish may appear alive after a long fight, when released the imbalance in the blood chemistry may kill them as much as three days after being caught. This is why, with any species, it’s important to choose the right tackle for the job and to not fight that fish for a long time. The bottom line is the more stress you put that fish under, the more chance it has of dying. This is not speculation, this is a fact".

For those that want to know about Sea Grant here's a little info..

Environmental stewardship, long-term economic development and responsible use of America’s coastal, ocean and Great Lakes resources are at the heart of Sea Grant’s mission. Sea Grant is a nationwide network (administered through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA]), of 30 university-based programs that work with coastal communities. The National Sea Grant College Program engages this network of the nation’s top universities in conducting scientific research, education, training, and extension projects designed to foster science-based decisions about the use and conservation of our aquatic resources.

Sea Grant is NOAA's primary university-based program in support of coastal resource use and conservation. Our research and outreach programs promote better understanding, conservation and use of America’s coastal resources. In short, Sea Grant is “science serving America’s coasts.”

No one "needs" to use 20 lb tippets or leaders. I think that it is better to err on the side of fish survival as opposed to the "sport" of the "fight". All this aside, Dave Sellers in the post above gives other good reasons for stronger tippets.
End of Rant!!
Mike

[Katz]

There is something great about really puttin' the wood to a big striper too :twisted:

Katz

[Sturmer White]

I am almost afraid to tell you guys this.
Catching my first striper with a fly was not that long ago,but,In 1940 when I was a pup. We used to troll Whiskey slough and others with my dad.The norm was 5 fish each and none released. All larger than today.We used a heavy jig and a red head jointed plug about 10 inches long. There were hooks hanging all over them.No wonder there are less fish today.
Live and learn the hard way.
Sorry about that!

[David Lee]

:)

[Hairstacker]

(deleted)

[JerryInLodi]

The rain should be minimal on Sunday and nil on Monday. Good time to go fishing!

[Mike McKenzie]

I guess I should of reread my poor attempt at injecting a little humor before I posted it. In retrospect it was way over the top. I was not meaning to belittle David's fish at all, you can't demean a fish like that. In my mind's eye I was poking fun at the stripers that live to a ripe old age gettin' fat off of all the pikeminnows and shad the river provides them. I guess my "mind's eye" was pretty blind at the time. I'm not going to make a bunch of excuses for my lack of judgement. Anyway with that said, I humbly apologize to David for the inane remark.

Mike

[jbird]

No one "needs" to use 20 lb tippets or leaders. I think that it is better to err on the side of fish survival as opposed to the "sport" of the "fight".

I really like this quote. I think its really important for new flyfishers to learn this concept. There are many veterans on this board that already know it, and it sometimes rubs the wrong way whether its meant to or not. But its really important stuff.

David....that striper is just rediculously huge!!! I aways saw it on your avatar and knew it was pretty big, but...DANG brother! That thing 'sick' huge. What an acomplishment!

Jay

[Hairstacker]

Jay, I hear ya! I remember when David first shared those photos with me, I thought, "Holy Mackerel!!!" The rod and reel next to it really puts it into perspective, doesn't it? What the pictures don't show as clearly is just how thick that fish was. :shock: Just an awesome, awesome catch! I'd truly be ecstatic with one fully half that size. :lol:

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I am advising the use of 20# tippet for Stripers for several reasons.

You loose less flies.

You might land a big fish you might otherwise loose with lighter tippet.

You might have a "wind knot" in you leader.

If you land a big fish you might get more excited about fly fishing and buy more and better tackle.

Then maybe someday I will be able to retire with enough money to have a nice motor home and a nice boat to pull behind it.

[andanb]

I caught my first striper on a fly on my first trip fall 06. I had just attended a talk from a guy who guides out of disco bay. He gave very helpful advice on presentation and general types of water to look for. So I loaded up my drift boat and my 4 hp and headed out to the delta...I felt a little intimidated by the water so I hugged the shore and stopped to fish the tules from time to time. I got one fish about 5#. The fish wasn't the only thing hooked that day!!!!