Russian River stripers??

over the past few years i've started seeing more stripers show up in the river. one year following the shad run i caught and released around 30+ in one deep pool over about a weeklong period (all schoolies 12-20") and a several larger stripers (maybe 22")  last year. i've heard of stripers being caught in the lower river and a historical russian river population, but nobody seems to target them specifically anymore. the fish i caught were all a couple miles south of healdsburg though, not the lower river. so i guess this is kind of directed towards Sean, but does the russian still have a self sustaining population of stripers or are these more likely wayward fish from lake mendocino?

These fish are most likely from San Francisco Bay.  Stripers are known to leave the bay and go ?????   When they where more abundant they would frequent other river-estuaries....it is curious that they have been frequenting the Russian River in apparently large numbers lately because there population in the SF Bay has been dwindling significantly lately.

Jim

There used to be decent populations, but we sampled the HELL out of the middle reach over the last 10 years or so and there were very few.  I would agree with Jim, likely fish from the bay making there way up stream.

thanks for the input guys, the large school was the same year (i think 3 years ago?) that was the "banner year" efor stripers right before the population seemed to totally crash. i havnt seen any this year though.

follow up question: do any stripers in lake mendocino spawn in the russian river headwaters?

They try but it is largely symbolic