California Aqueduct Schoolie-Fest

SoleSearcher · #1 04-29-2005, 04:12 PM

Just found the site this week, so a big hello from the left coast to all of you fellow addicts out there! I took my 5 year old out to the California Auqueduct yesterday for a little swing fest. We fished for about 4 hours and between the two rods had 57 schoolie sized stripers, all on cut anchovies(All Released). Sure was a blast to see my son struggling to pull them in on 6lb test spinning gear. All the fish we caught were small schoolies from 14-19 inches, but I will gurantee you that my boy didn't care, he fought em like he was pullin on marlin..... what a spunky fish for their size & what a way to further fuel the healthiest addiction a boy can be afflicted with. Right at dusk they spread out and started boiling on surface bait, but the boy was worn out and couldn't miss another day of school so we had to head for the barn. I could see fish boiling here and there for at least a quarter mile above and below me. There was definitely some big fish breaking water. I am fully convinced that this concrete river is full of 20lb and up stripers, but it is a tough place to figure out so far. Moderate to heavy current most of the time and very homogenous features.(no real structure to hold the bait in any particular spot) SabadoSky has some great posts on the subject. I guess for now I will have to live viacariously through all you guys posts back on the east coast in Real striper heaven. Maybe it'll be in the cards next week for dad to sneek out on my own for a liitle run-and-gun action with lures for the bigger models. (it is too much walking for my boy to keep up) Keep all the great posts coming, it is food for the soul for us out here in Cali! :D

Striperjim · #2 04-29-2005, 04:41 PM

Welcome solesearcher. Great name. Seems like I do a lot of solesearchin out there alone in the darkness of night. Nothin but the stars and the sound of stripers chasin baitfish. (if Im lucky) wooosh.
Great to have some west coasters on board. awesome day on schoolies for the little guy. a day he wont forget for sure.
Sabado seems to have conquered that aqueduct some . On his first attempt if my memory serves me he was into fish there. Enjoy the site and keep the reports comin.

Roccus · #3 04-29-2005, 04:52 PM

Welcome to the sight sole searcher,
Sounds lke you and the little tyke had a day!
Striper fishing here hasn't realy got going yet,weve got another week or so before they start, enjoy the sight and keep that little guy fishing!
Stiper Jim said it best,nothing like the deep night, just you,the darkness and BASS!

tight lines
Rock

briggs · #4 04-29-2005, 08:57 PM

Welcome Sole !!!! Glad to have you on board my friend...

love to hear about a dad that makes time for the young ones....its gold i tells ya Gold !!!

I was blessed with a daughter and even though she's three, she can cast her 2.5 foot rod like a champ. could be the teacher <wink>.

all i can say is , Kepp putting your time in and i'll gaurantee you that the stripers will be of good size traveling up that manmade heaven.

If i were you....i'd plug with something shiny and topwater like the plug in my avatar....with no formations at all, the glare and the rattle from this plug will be sure to kill um. How deep does that get? just curious.

I also think that Deadly Dicks worked right in the middle of the depth would clean them up too. whatever you do use.... my thoughts are to use something that will catch their eyes....their going up there looking for bait and if you present them something that takes their mind off what their chasing, they'll be chasing you instead.

i'd love to see more pictures of where you fish.

:twisted: craig aka briggs :twisted:

aka surfcastermaster

8) MASTER OF HIS OWN DOMAIN 8)

SoleSearcher · #5 04-30-2005, 10:58 PM

A bucket of thanks for the warm welcome from all of you guys here, there is nothing more symbiotically beneficial than like-minded sportsmen and women sharing the things they have learned both positive and negative. As for the rest of the guys out there totin' rods that don't fall into the "sportsmen" category.......well let's just say they can all go pound sand. Seems like a really good bunch here, that's why I didn't want to waste a bunch of time lurking and not posting. I don't know how much I can bring to the discussion table, but I appreciate you all letting me at least sit at it. The love of the outdoors and all things wild(especially wet n' wild) was a gift given to me by both my parents at an early age, and I think that lifelong passion is what kept me out of the drugs and jail trap alot of my friends fell in along the path to adulthood. Pretty tough to go out and get drunk and stoned when you are trying to get your backpack whittled down to less than 100 pounds for that weekend pack trip 14 miles into the Colorado wilderness for a shot at a bunch of wild cutthroat trout that have never seen monofilament before.(grew up in Colo) So with that background in mind, I figure I can at least do the same for my sons(I have the 5 year old and twin 8 month old boys) Besides, it is a gift even the poorest dad can give to their kids, it only increases in value over the years and is fully transferrable without a tax penalty! Well, sorry about the diatribe, back to striper fishing..........Jim, I did send sabado a message so hopefully we can hook up out here and keep some california reports coming this way. You guys sure are right about night fishing, I really got into it kinda outta necessity when my wife was pregnant last and it was really my only time to get out of the house. Then the twins came and now my days are really full, but there is alllllll night left after everyone is tucked into bed and I do real good on about 3-4 hours of sleep a night. To me night fishing put's you into almost a Zen state where you sink so deep into your pole and slide down the line into the bump.......bump........skiiiid.......bump.......bump..........tap-WIND,WIND,SWIIING!!!! Then there is the fact that my very first striper ever was caught off a jetty at 1a.m., and hour into a steeply falling tide on a 7 foot spinning rod more suited to catching surf perch than stripers. I think I had maxed out the rod's line rating with 10lb. test ninga copolymer and that first fish was 34"(released, weight unknown) Right then, I knew I would be a Stiper junkie. Man can those fish smoke drag!! P.S. briggs, thanks for the tip.....I picked up a handful of stuff local here including an a couple of super-spooks in black for the night runs and a couple real silvery-flashy kinda shad lookin ones for the daylight hours. As to the depth of the duct, I am sure it varies somewhat but my Humminbird Smartcast reads real well in there and the middle seems to be fairly consistent around 25 feet plus/minus a couple. The duct varies in width from maybe 150+ feet down to about 40 feet towards the branched out southern ends of it where it enters lakes like Castaic and a lesser-known lake called Silverwood.(a real good friend of mine caught the current Castaic lake record striper last February from shore, I believe it was 42lbs-2oz.) I'll end this book now, sorry bout the long post. Briggs.............it is definitely GOLD!

briggs · #6 04-30-2005, 11:16 PM

As long as you post your reports Sole, bad or good, we love to hear it no matter where you fish. sure we all study the Striper in the habitat that WE fish in, but, and i'm sure i can speak for everyone here, we love to hear about the hows and wheres of every single place those Linesiders Run, How ya caught them, how deep, etc.......

I don't fish Hybrid Stripers myself but i love hearing about all the guys that do.

Study Study Study...Learn Learn Learn.....when it come to Stripers i'm like a sponge just hunting any new information i can get on them, wherever, and whenever.

You mentioned "Spooks" and i meant to mention them myself.....especially in that duct. No obstructions to block a perfectly worked sillouet in the night sky. I figure, day or night...if your standing on the side of that duct....they have to go by you either way they go....you just need to figure out what will turn them towards your presentation.

Great post......keep them coming and good luck my friend.

:twisted: craig aka briggs :twisted:

aka surfcastermaster

8) MASTER OF HIS OWN DOMAIN 8)

merrillizer · #7 05-01-2005, 12:42 AM

Sole, welcome to the site! Great posts! :D

Dobb · #8 05-01-2005, 07:02 AM

Welcome solesearcher,,,Briggs, I see that you don't fish for hybrids, this is going to sound stupid but what is the difference? Up here in Nova Scotia I was always told that the hybrids had broken stripes, true stripers had straight lines. If this is true than we catch mostly hybrids, maybe all. I don,t even look at the stripes now to see the difference. As far as I know the two types swim together. Is this the way to tell the difference?

briggs · #9 05-01-2005, 09:17 AM

Hey Dobb......I just recently started to learn about the Hybrid this past tear....but heres a good article on the site for you to read.

https://www.stripers247.com/hybridstripers.htm

:twisted: craig aka briggs :twisted:

aka surfcastermaster

8) MASTER OF HIS OWN DOMAIN 8)

Cuz N' Eddy · #10 05-01-2005, 10:55 AM

Spooks seem to be the talk of a lot striper fisherman but i don't know much about them since I have never used them myself, maybe I have never even seen one or maybe I have one and don't know what they are called.. what do they look like ?

briggs · #11 05-01-2005, 11:07 AM

I usually use the "Ghost" version...which is black for nighttime fishing. of course i was catching them left and right over at Barrington beach last season with the Ghost. This is a picture of the Original Spook...pulled through the water with long jerking actions, usually will force the fish to react quickly.

:twisted: craig aka briggs :twisted:

aka surfcastermaster

8) MASTER OF HIS OWN DOMAIN 8)

BostonBoy · #12 05-01-2005, 12:06 PM

Welcome to the site Solesearcher...

kkevvy · #13 05-01-2005, 12:08 PM

Awesome name dood!

Welcome, and wow! 57 schoolies!!! I bet your hands were hurting at the end of that day.

Striper777 · #14 05-01-2005, 12:24 PM

Welcome to the site Sole!!!

57!!! WOW sounds like an awsome day

SoleSearcher · #15 05-01-2005, 02:56 PM

Thanks again for the welcome, and the thumb does get a litle raw from lippin all those schoolies. I never net em unless I absolutely have to.........easier on them I think anyway. Although I haven't experienced it yet....I do believe that guys catch upwards of 100 schoolies in the 1-5 pound range a day here(that's 100 apiece). I can see that potential. I think in order to do that it would have to be on a day that I only take the real light tackle, otherwise I would just end up pluggin for cows. That aqueduct gives one the unique opportunity to chase big fish with lighter tackle because of the confined spaces they have to run in. You may have to sprint to get your line back on the spool but hey.............haven't we all done that on the beach before anyway? Can't wait to try the spooks next weekend.