night runs

[lee s]

We went and pestered the pond pictured in the other post Friday afternoon and night. We had some weather moving thru which may have been a bit of a hindrance? Who knows? Anyway it seemed a bit slower than was expected, but certainly active enough to hold one's interest for a night. First time "dark tossing" at this pond so.....? LOVE night forays on a big moon and will return near FM in August.
Saturday was used up snooping a bit along the Sac. R. looking for shad activity to kill some time. None found along our route to Verona, which consisted of "lower river" spots. Fishing much higher should still prove successful yet.
At Verona we targeted some stripers under the lights. Very little activity and a smidgeon of success was to be had there.
Even in these super-crowded envirions, much peace and solitude can be gleaned on night excursions.
....lee s.

[Robert McMahan]

lee,
Back in the 80's I used to fish for stripers under the lights in the dead of winter. The colder the better. We'd unload the boat about 10 pm and fish 'till one or two in the morning. Nearly freeze your tail off. We had a "milk run" of dock lights we'd fish and we'd run from one to the other searching for stripers ganged up maurauding the shad that gathered under the lights. What would be really exciting is when you'd be motoring up to a light and you'd see a striper busting a shad on top. Now that would warm you up on a cold January night.

[acorbin01]

Lee,

I thought I sent you an email, but wasn't sure so I'll make me off topic comment right here. Hopefully you won't mind.

The flies you sent me were WONDERFUL!!!!! I can not thank you enough. I know this is not the right forum, but maybe others can see what a great person you are. Thanks so much again!!

AC

[lee s]

Dang AC,
Yer blowing my cover AND reputation!
Glad they work and enjoy. And I REALLY REALLY wanted to post "no" under Rick Z's querry on the tying board.

Robert,
Do you find that the stripes like some lights better than others? And it might take some studying sometimes to figure out why?

[Robert McMahan]

lee,
You're absolutely right about the stripes liking some lights better than others and to tell you the truth, I could never figure out why sometimes. There were some lights that looked really good to me and to me looked no different than some of the other lights they were using but for some reason they were almost never there. Do you have an explanation? For some reason when we used to fish the lights at night in the middle of winter I always felt kind of sneakey and like I was doing something wrong like breaking curfew or sneaking out of the house or playing hookey from school and I don't know why because it's perfectly legal. The others must have felt the same way without admitting it because we almost always spoke softly or whispered. Weird, huh?

[lee s]

Robert,
Now you made me think.....OUCH!
We do one light in a Piper slough that is better than many of the others close by. IT sticks out further into the slough.....beyond the shore weeds. Reinforcing, I think, the stripers preferrence for open water there.
Another, that we like on the Sac river, seems best maybe because it has more "structure" around it, which may make it "hold" bait better?
Both seem best for "schoolies". Bigger(tho less usually) fish seem to be more abundant away from these lights in the dark on other structure or current seams. Maybe that has to do with depth tho, as both lights are over deep (12'+) water and the "other" places are more to our liking...2'-8' of water.
Hmmmm? Guess you STILL gotta think about the likes of either your target or your target's target!

[Robert McMahan]

lee,
good response. Now you've got me thinking. I guess one of the obvious answers to why stripes prefer some lights over the other is because the bait fish prefer one light over the other which begs the question "why do the bait fish prefer one light over the other". One thing I have noticed though is that they seem to prefer the white lights over the colored ones if my memory still serves me. I haven't done this in awhile.