Stripers in the D

[Rusty Spinner]

OK... so for those of you who have seen them in Hancock and points east and west, What time of year was it?

Bug Week for the 18" I watched get caught by my buddy. Earlier watching the big cows chasing shad in Bard Parker like first week in May.

[Future Fanatic]

i've made it my mission...
to catch a striper in the D


Given how fishing for trout went last year...

[FIN-ITE 34]

Try a big articulated deceiver in shad colors.

[mudbug201]

Didn't Mark Celebuski used to post on this site? He has targeted stripers in the Upper Delaware for decades. Pretty sure JC, another former poster here, caught one last summer on the WB.

I've seen them in the West Branch, the Main Stem, and the Lackawaxen. Never seen one in the East Branch but I'm sure they're there. They're in the river year round, so I'm not sure it matters when you fish for them.

Two really cool experiences seeing stripers hunt in the river...

A couple of years back floating through Buckingham pool at dusk - trout and fallfish were rising everywhere on a spinner fall, and this giant striper was picking them off when they rose. There was this big wake moving through the pool, like jaws before he hits the boat, and it would just rip toward the smaller fish as they broke the surface. My friend and I were striking out on the trout and wished we had a giant streamer in our boxes.

A few years before that, at Bard Parker, I saw a giant fish repeatedly strike a duckling that was straggling behind its brethren. Three, four strikes, and then the duckling disappeared 10 feet from shore, in about two feet of water. Didn't see the predator, so maybe it wasn't a striper. Could easily have been a northern pike, which are around, or I suppose a giant brown trout or a really huge small mouth bass. But if I had to put money on it, I'd say it was a striper.

Both of these examples show the fish have totally adapted to river life, having left the salt permanently, and know how to target fresh water species. I'd think if you find slow, deep water and throw some very large, very heavy streamers, or better yet, neutral weighted streamers on fast sinking line, you'd eventually hook a striper. And if you didn't, as a consolation, you might get a really nice trout or walleye for your effort.

[Future Fanatic]

STREAMERS!!??!?

I'm a bit more pragmatic than you guys...

I think of a fly rod as a tool...

AND that's not the tool for THIS job...

Yes. I'm fully aware that this is a fly fishing site...

[FIN-ITE 34]

Should be interesting to see someone trolling bunker spoons up there.

[Rusty Spinner]

Should be interesting to see someone trolling bunker spoons up there.

Or Mojos

[FIN-ITE 34]

Or maybe try some chunking. Eels ?

[lightenup]

You boobs better stay outta my chum slick!!!

[FIN-ITE 34]

Don't get me started with those d-bags that anchor up right off your stern with their anchor rope in your lines. Kinda' like NJ stream trout fishing

[lightenup]

Don't get me started with those d-bags that anchor up right off your stern with their anchor rope in your lines. Kinda' like NJ stream trout fishing

Not if you know where to go...it also helps if you know people with private property...now if you cross my chum slick in Hancock this year, I'll be launching 16oz. diamond jigs at you.

[tompg]

many moons ago on the upper EB, something big big took a ten in brown I was reeling in took it to Trenton and back. It spit the fish out about 15 feet from me. Never saw what it was. I assume Jaws.