Lucky Strikes: Round Three
The Midland Striper Club hosts a tournament on Lake Murray taking place on the 3rd Saturday of each month. The overall winner is named “Team of the Year.” Team “Lucky Strikes” placed 18th in January, 25th in February, and returned for round three in March.
Dale Lee was excited for the March tournament because the ocean runners (giant 15-20 inch long herring) were migrating up the rivers to spawn. These fish are fast swimmers and look really good on a hook. The ocean runners don’t get many bites, but when they do, it is bound to catch a large striper.
Dale and Fowler Lane fished on Friday for practice and caught one 8 pound striper which we cooked for supper. After dinner, we prepared the boat, bait, tied rigs, and went to sleep.
We left the dock at 6 Saturday morning bound for the place where Dale and Fowler fished the night before. There were enough lights in the corner of the lake to look like a city, and as we passed, we saw that a bass tournament with 175 boats was getting ready to start.
We arrived at our cove and our rival, Danny Young’s team “Wildman” was already in position. We baited the hooks with blueback and ocean herring and had our lines in the water at 7.
One of the plainer boards shook, and a striper kicked his tail creating a great toilet bowl flush about 20 feet behind the plainer. This striper ate one of the ocean herring and we knew it would be a large fish. Dale seized the rod and battled the striper until the 8 pounder was in the boat. I hoisted our striper flag over the antenna so everyone could see that “Lucky Strikes” was in the game.
The wind increased to 25 mph and we struggled to control the 12 lines that we pulled behind us. Danny hooked a big striper and we watched him fight the fish through a telescope. Unfortunately for Danny, the fish threw the hook.
We had greater problems to worry about than how the other boats were doing. Hungry osprey hovered overhead with their eyes peeled for bait fish. The osprey cupped it’s wings and dove for an ocean herring. I waited until he was just above the water before sounding the air horn, and saving the bait. Unfortunately, osprey are persistent birds, and the air horn went silent. We attempted to jerk the rods so that the osprey would miss the bait but it was no use. Two hooks were cleaned in seconds and we were forced to relocate.
I was handling the lines on the windward side of the boat and worked to untangle clusters of knots for over an hour. Being superstitious fishermen, we determined that the reason for us not catching a second fish was because we had only one striper flag to fly. Dale pulled out his iPhone and ordered another flag.
I had just cleared my mess of knots when one of my plainer boards jolted, and popped up out of the water. I knew that it had to be a big fish because he hit the ocean herring. In a hurry, I released tension on the rod allowing my dead ocean herring to sit still in the water. The striper returned and swallowed him whole.
Now we were in hot pursuit. The fish was surging ahead and stripping line from the reel, but I dared not touch the spoil, or apply any unnecessary pressure. I had all the time in the world to land the striper. Fowler drove while Dale cleared the lines. We could see his silver sides beside the boat and Dale netted the 13 pound fish. There was a round of high fives and pictures. We were careful not to hold the fish too close to the side of the boat out of fear of dropping it.
The crew was relaxed at this point because we had two nice fish to weigh in. The tournament was called just as our trolling motor ran out of power and we made our way to Acapulco to weigh our fish. We ended up placing 6th place for the day, putting us in 11th place overall.
One of the most interesting parts of the day was watching one striper that we never caught. The striper rose to the surface to attack an ocean runner. The herring darted back and forth, even jumping out of the water to evade attack. The striper was nipping at his tail and matching every move. From the boat, we could see his silver sides under water. It was a big fish and he pulled the ocean runner off the hook, never to be seen again.
Stripers are fascinating fish because they are the perfect mix of fresh water and salt water game fish. The way they rise to the surface to chase bait reminds me of dorado in the ocean, and I appreciate the convenience of catching striper in freshwater lakes near home.