San Antonio 10/29

[snospdr]

Spent a couple of hours at San Antonio trolling and looking for stripers on top. Beautiful afternoon and evening, but not much going on around the So. Shore marina. Lots of bait metered, and tons of bait (glass minnows?) by the dock, but no stripers to be found. Saw a brief flurry of a boil across from the marina, but that was about it. At one point, I saw hundreds of birds diving on bait and managed to pull gear and get up close, but no fish breaking the surface and no hits when casting spoons beneath the birds. It was crazy though. I have seen that kind of very intense bird activity in the ocean, but nothing like that on a lake before. I was amazed that I didn't end up with a bird on my line with that kind of activity.
What's happened to the shad? I don't remember seeing so many schools of those small minnows in the past. The last time I fished there at night, I put my bait light out on the water and only managed to draw up schools of very small minnows. Let me know your thoughts on this. Thanks.

[plumbertom]

Last time I was there those minnows were every where.
Huge schools of them.
But there were also schools of shad they just weren't as thick.
Seems to me the trick would be locating the shad schools
Just looking at the two types of bait I'm reasonably certain the stripers are going to target the shad as much as possible.
They were a bit larger and contain a lot more fat so they get more food value for energy spent.
Just trying to tell which fish is fish on the FF is where the skill will come in.
If you figure out how to do that, clue me in would you?
By the way, what were the water conditions?

[snospdr]

Last time I was there those minnows were every where.
Huge schools of them.
But there were also schools of shad they just weren't as thick.
Seems to me the trick would be locating the shad schools
Just looking at the two types of bait I'm reasonably certain the stripers are going to target the shad as much as possible.
They were a bit larger and contain a lot more fat so they get more food value for energy spent.
Just trying to tell which fish is fish on the FF is where the skill will come in.
If you figure out how to do that, clue me in would you?
By the way, what were the water conditions?

Didn't take note of water temp., although air temp. was in the 80's. Water clarity was fair. Only a few boats out. If I can get more info. on the bait fish, I'll let you know.
Thanks for the reply.

[SinCoast]

It sure does seem like there's more of those little minnows than normal years. And yeah they aren't shad. They almost look like mosquitofish. I bet the crappie love em.
Thanks for the report & info.

[TroutOnly]

troll thru those birds working the surface,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,T/O,,,,,,,

[snospdr]

Good idea T.O. Thanks. I trolled around it, cast into it, but didn't try trolling through it.QUOTE][/QUOTE]t it.

[plumbertom]

I usually try trolling right at the edge of working birds, as close as I can get without running right through the middle of them.
Seems like when I stay on the edge I can get several passes before they break up but usually only one through the middle.
I've often picked up a fish on each pass.

[plumbertom]

I've been doing some research and I think I may have found the forage fish that seems to be in San Antonio in such huge numbers. http://calfish.ucdavis.edu/species/?uid=52&ds=241

[snospdr]

Excellent research! Looks like it to me.

[plumbertom]

I'm going out to the lake in the AM with a friend from Fresno.
I'll see if I can net another one to look closer at it.
Hopefully I'll have a interesting fish report for tomorrow.

[snospdr]

Okay! I hope you find some stripers as well.

[plumbertom]

Trip was canceled by my friend, His sitter flaked on him.