In the Dark

[slowriprun]

SM,
 Being a guy stuck on shore, but addicted to fishing, these days stripers, I do a lot of late night shore walking. The first lesson: Don't wade would be my first suggestion.
  As the water temp comes up, our fish will get more agressive and actively feed throughout the night, and day, if they're feeling safe. Stealth is the key, which means moving slower and more silently than most people are willing to do. Or, sometimes, I'll just go to one of my spots and sit,,,,and sit,,,,and sit,,,not moving, at all; it's amazing how the fish will suddenly appear.

[surfingmarmot]

Are you discussing bait fishing or fly fishing? The reason I ask is we were talking about fly fishing for Stripers using poppers or other surface lures in the shallows. Nice fish regardless though.

[slowriprun]

my bad on the pic, got caught up in the approach to the fish. But, unless I'm wrong, if a spot regularly has fish crashing the shore, the approach and then the first couple of casts are going to be keys to hooking 'em.
 This winter, I threw clousers under these types of conditions; the fish were there; sometimes they'd follow, but no takes. With hardware, they'd push at it, swipe at it and/or follow. I'm hoping that it was a cold water thing. We'll see.

[surfingmarmot]

Get some foam poppers (for an example check out Lee Haskin's Gurglers–what I use but heck Lee taught me the Forebay and he's the best there is there).
Ans don't pull it in after the first hit and miss—they sometimes hit it 3 times or more before giving up. Seriously.

His site: http://www.gurglersonline.com

My "go-to" popper: http://www.gurglersonline.com/standardweedless.html

[slowriprun]

Thanks SM.
Yea, I picked up some fly stuff a couple of weeks back, so I could start throwing some 'patterns' together; one of 'em is a popper body. We'll see how it goes when this foul weather finally ends and the water warms. Thanks for the help; I'm gonna need all I can get,,,, if this is gonna be the year of the fly.

[surfingmarmot]

I'll post in hookups when I can when and where I plan to be Striper hunting with my fly gear. Company is always welcome. I have restricted Striper fly fishing to the Forebay in the past but this year I am considering widening my venues to foothill reservoirs (like Millerton, Del Valle, etc.) which have good population of large Stripers. Ricky Mitchell swears Millerton is awesome but it used to be too far away. Now it's a bit closer for me so we'll see. I did see incredible frenzied feeding at Del Valle up in the narrow end by the swimming beaches one Late September or early Oct a few yeas ago when I was there for a kayaking class.

[slowriprun]

SM, I'll keep my eyes open. The weather is finally about to turn for us; spots down this way will pop hard by the 4th or 5th day of continious warm days and warm nights. It should kick off good nighttime feeds, which for me, give me a chance on the fly rod. If I don't go out in a yak and further destroy my arm, or,,,the glass half full, if I go out in the yak and use proper technique and my arm doesn't get whacked, I'll be throwing at some fish by sunday night.

[MattB]

I didn't read all of the responses so it may have been mentioned but one thing I do at night that makes casting BIG, WET flies a bit easier is to shorten the leader WAY up!(this is considering that I'm usually fishing a 10-16' leaders for trout/bass).  A 4' 20ish lb leader makes it a lot easier/safer to cast those flies as they'll be following closer to the end of your casting head/line.  Hope this helps.

Matt 

[slowriprun]

Thanks Matt. That's about the length I was throwing, but I'm gonna switch it up tomorrow night. We'll see.