What's in a Striper's stomach

[skunked again]

I had the oppurtunity to fish my favorite lake today with a few friends. In the water by 7. We went over to the west end to snoop around and fish where all the boats were near Saddle Dam. Temperature was so much more bearable at low 90s. I could actually fish and not put up the bimini cover.

Within 2 mins of dropping a sardine, my friend hooks up and looses his first striper ever. Ten minutes later he hooks up and fish #1 on, and lands his 1st 3 lb striper.

A few moments later my other friend hooks up and lands his first striper on 6 lb test. He's totally nuts about catching such a big 3 lb striper, which is the biggest fish he had ever caught.

About 10 am I drop a chunk of sardine down into the depths and before I engage my reel, line starts to peel from under my thumb at a very fast pace. I set the hook and this fish screams off line on my bait caster with 10 lb line. There was no stopping him as he peeled off line for what seemed like a minute. I could feel him shaking his head and knew he was a big fish. After the tug of war with him pulling drag most of the time I could see color. Staring at his side view in the water, we couldnt believe how big he was. I figured he was a chunky monkey, but did not expect him to be my personal best. Scale read 8.5 lb and 30 inches. Woohooo!

He was a very hungry fish and pretty much had nothing on his mind but sardines. It seemed all the other fishermen were feeding him. He barfed up about 10 pieces of cut bait and there was nothing else in his stomach.

Long story short, it was an incredible day. The guys were totally stoked at the results for the day. Between the 3 of us, we were 2 shy of the limit on Stripers. Most fish 2 to 4 lbs. Since we could not stick anymore fish in the baitwell and choosing fresh fish over quantity we called it a day at 12 noon.



I cleaned 9 of these and did an inspection on all of there bellies. 3 of the 9 fish had cut sardines in there bellies as below.



One of them had a long minnow in his belly and about a mouth full of shrimp. They say there are glass minnows in the lake. Maybe that's what it is. The shrimp were barely over 3/8" long. It's hard to see but they are the grey in the left of the picture and the scattered grey spots on the bigger fish it ate. I can't see this big of a fish eating scattered tiny shrimp. Maybe he sucked in a mouthfull of a cloud of baby shrimp.



This is zoomed version.


Good luck and tight lines!

[karlow]

Nice work!
Skinner?

[whopperstopper]

Very nice good job...Dvl stripeys...not skunked again...unless you brought some skunk ..lol

[Sublime-Steve]

Niiiiice! looks like you tore it up out there.. intresting to see what's in there stomach's. where does the shrimp come from?

[skunked again]

Yes DVL. Not living up to my name. lol, I am over due for a limit though.

[bob sr]

what a day!..............question: where you flylining those sardines, or were you using some type of weight(sinkers) to get those 'dines dowm and into the "zone"?

[MOON]

Hey we fished the same area we were in the GREEN Crestliner left the same time as you no more room in the fish hold...our biggest was about 9lb..

[HawgStalker]

Congrats on the PB!

Glad to see there wasn't any lmb in that stomach... damn stripers!

[skunked again]

I did you see you guys yesterday. That was a really nice striper you picked up in August!

[Desertfishen2]

congrats on another good day and good job putting your friends on fish. The trip with GREGG pays off. Chad and I will be contacting you about the lmb trip.