A Frankfort man’s 52-pound, I-64 striper
July 14, 2009 by admin · Comments Off
By Carleton L. West
A fly fishing friend in Virginia Beach pestered me for some time to take a crack at striped bass, one of America’s great sport fishes. We’d met in 2002 on New Mexico’s San Juan River where big rainbows and browns thrived not far from the duplex cabin we rented near the little town of Navajo.
Owen Pepper first got my attention with his tales of a guide on Arkansas’s White River by the name of Dave Lewis. I’ve lost track now of all my trips there for ho-hum 60-70 daily trout outings Lewis guided on the fabled Ozarks tailwater. Like a stockbroker with a practiced eye for a hot deal, Pepper knows the path to fish. He’s worth listening to.
So he kept up his campaign with e-mails and phone calls. Attached to the electronic messages were color photos of Pepper and his striped bass catches. He escalated a year ago or so when he bought a boat, a 19-footer, seaworthy, with 100 plus horses and a center console. But it was a late night phone call that produced the clincher when I casually asked where he was hooking all these stripers. Under the Chesapeake Bay bridges – at night. Which bridges specifically? The Interstate 64 bridges.
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Late winter is prime time for striped bass in Lake Cumberland tributaries
January 10, 2009 by admin · Comments Off
Jacob Knight of Lexington holds a 6-pound striper caught on a 30-degree day on Lake Cumberland
A slight temperature variance can make a huge difference in February, according to Tim Tarter of Nancy Guide Service, who has been fishing for Lake Cumberland’s legendary stripers for as long as the fish have been in the lake.
“We’re always looking for a little bit warmer water this time of year,” he said, noting that alewives and consequently the stripers will congregate in spots where the water is just a degreee or two warmer than other parts of the lake during February.
Often that means heading up the Cumberland River or up tributary creeks to parts of the lake less famous for their striper fishing than the lake’s open lower main body. These areas have more flats, which warm up just a bit on sunny February days, and the creeks bring warmer water into the lake after most February rainfalls.
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