February Stripers

[John H]

I have fished stripers a few times this month. No skunks but also nothing big. Mostly fish around 20" which seems to be the new schoolie. Hopefully a bruiser or two will stop by on their way up river to see Tony.

I generally fish the chartreuse clouser but I decided step up my striper game and try some new flies. I bought a few flies at the shop and one of them, the mullet, seemed to get me a few more grabs. I went back and got some materials and some advice and am working on tying some. It is a style I have not tied before so it could take a few tries to get something the fish and I both like.

I did get some stripers today along with a couple of bass. Nice out there in the rain today but a little windy which can be a big problem in kayak fishing but I did get it to work.

http://i.imgur.com/3q5XCXI.jpg (https://imgur.com/3q5XCXI)

http://i.imgur.com/lDLfOKb.jpg (https://imgur.com/lDLfOKb)

http://i.imgur.com/HKFrhv9.jpg (https://imgur.com/HKFrhv9)

http://i.imgur.com/R0qSs73.jpg (https://imgur.com/R0qSs73)

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Thanks John.......



Seems like the average size Striper is getting smaller all the time.

https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/shrinking-fish

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Their is a belief that by shooting the deer with large horns will leave the deer with smaller horns to breed.

This is supposed to produce deer with smaller horns?

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Back in the day when we had thousands of Chinese Ringneck Pheasants, introduced from China, we had the belief that

the roosters who flew right away got shot and the ones that did not fly, but ran away, survived. We believed that these "runners"

survived to breed a new pheasant that prefered to run than fly?

.

[Tony Buzolich]

That's a really nice smolt pattern and a good size too. It won't be long before they start dumping smolt in the rivers and then things will get going.
Tony

[John H]

I saw something similar about wolves and moose. People shoot all the big moose for trophies and those are the only ones that can fight off a pack of wolves so the wolves mop up all the rest and then both species go into decline.

The decline of the striper is a mystery to me. Seems like pumping combined with DFG's effort to get rid of them are the big ones. There are probably other factors.