January is almost here and the winter bite is in full swing. The stripers have followed the bait into the creeks. The water is clear all over the lake and the water temperature has held off the cold better than expected and is still hanging in the low fifties. This year the best bait has been herring and trout. Herring is catching the most fish but the trout are catching the bigger fish. Downlines have been catching the bulk of the fish. Rig up two downlines with a 2 ounce Capt. Mack swivel sinker, a Berkley Flourocarbon leader, and a 2/0 Gamakatsu octopus hook for the trout. Then two Shakespeare striper rods with the same set ups but a size 1 Gamakatsu hook for the herring. So far this Winer, the bait has been down 50-60 feet deep in 70-80 feet of water and the stripers are right with the bait. So far this Winter, the downline has been best for numbers but for a big fish don’t rule out a freeline. A freeline with a nice size trout will be hard to beat over the same areas of deep bait. The water quality is great right now so be prepared for both techniques.
Another strong pattern has been slow trolling Alabama Rigs in any area you see birds working or the back of the creeks. The most popular a-rig for stripers is the MiniMack that has beefed up jigs for the hard pulling stripers. Keep several different jig heads on the a-rigs to cover different depths. If you want to build your own a-rig, take a GA Blade fully bladed a-rig and put 5 Berkley Fusion 1/8 oz Hybrid Jigheads tipped with 2.8 Berkley Electric Blue Chartreuse Power Swimmers. Slow trolling these rigs behind the boat 40-50 feet at 1.4 mph as a baseline amd adjust accordingly depending on the depth of the fish. January is looking great. See you on the water!
