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Originally posted by Yaz:
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Originally posted by hornharvester:
[b] You troll at only 3 mph? I would think for such a big fish you would be in the 5-6 mph range.

Stripers are new to me but trolling is not and Ive found speeding up will trigger fish into a reaction bite when they are not actively feeding.

If I am reading you post right, in the summer you want to land them quick so they don't exasperate? Do you have to revive them first before releasing? h.h.
RARELY pull the riggers over 3MPH. Big stripers are like me…..fat and lazy, and won't chase much. Smaller schoolies you can't pull fast enough to keep it away from them if they want it.

When fish are inactive, I do the ole "stop and go". The clearer the water, and spookier the fish are, the farther back I pull jigs. Up to 200' back. If I see inactive fish suspended and loafing on the sonar, I will estimate when the baits are close, and throw the kicker into neutral. Depending how deep they are, I count it down to let the baits fall below the fish. I put it back in gear, and goose it up to 3-4 MPH for a short distance. That will trigger them into a short chase, and often a reaction bite.

A big stripe will literally fight to the death. Anything over about 12lbs is really susceptible to stress induced death WHEN IT GETS WARM. The biggest factor is water temperature. The warmer the water, the more susceptible they are. 75 degree surface temp is when you have to start being careful. A lot of other factors come into play, like how they are handled, and how long they are out of the water, etc. Just plan on any fish over 15lb, in 80 degree water not making it. Just because they swim away, don't assume they live. Lots of delayed mortality studies out there where they go to the bottom, and die later unseen. Lactic acid buildup from the fight in their muscle tissue basically cramps them up, and they go to the bottom. Striper HAS to swim to breath. They can not stay stationary for very long at all. This time of year, we catch our legal limit, regardless of whether we release them or not, and quit. Les's big fish died. I tried for over 20 minutes to revive it. However, the longer it was in the 83 degree water, the worse it got. After the 5'th time it came to to the top belly up, I put it in the cooler. The rest went back pissed off. I am confident they were good to go. [/b]
Interesting, thanks for the info. h.h.

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