Coosa River Stripe Bass on the Fly
I lifted my rod tip and made a roll cast toward the bank and let the streamer drift from the bank with the current. At the end of the drift, I took a long strip and I felt bump, and I did a double tap strip set. After I set the hook I started striping line back in, the striper was swimming upstream and coming right up to the boat. I looked over at Mason and said, “fish on, I don’t think it is a very big one”. Every other hook up this morning had been explosive action from the start and this one was letting me drag it up to the boat with little resistance. I did not have eyes on the fish yet and it was within a few feet of the boat when it decided to turn and start running back downstream with the current. In the matter of seconds all the lose line was out and I was on the reel, I could not get my hands on the handle as it was spinning out of control. I tried to cup my right hand under the spinning reel to slow it down as the drag did not seem to be doing anything and line continued to peel off the reel. All the sudden I saw the color of my fly line change and I knew it would not be long before I was into the backing. I told Mr. Dan, “It’s about to get me into the backing”. We had been holding in the current with the trolling motor. By the time he got the out board cranked and the trolling motor stowed I was well into the backing, and we started chasing the fish down river. I was able to retrieve sufficient line back onto the reel and was ready to begin the fight. Finally, I was able to slow the big bass down and turn her head after much effort. I started pulling her toward me, lifting the rod high in the air then reeling back down. I would gain yards of line then she would turn and peel it back off again. I felt like I had a “tiger by the tail”. Finally, I started making progress and was able to drag her within a few feet of the boat and we got eyes on her. My heart started to pound in my chest, this was a most impressive fish. I would pull her up and try to turn her head towards the net and she would turn and dive; I was dancing around the boat as she would dive under us and tried to work to the other side, trying to be careful to keep the line from crossing the prop and breaking her off. I told Mr. Dan, “I don’t think the net is big enough”. I continued to fight the beast a few feet from the boat, and he grabbed the Boga Grips. The big fish was beginning to tire after close to 20 minutes of fighting, I brought her close and Dan Perkins grabbed the leader, and we brought her beside the boat where he could grab her lip with the Boga Grip. Finally, she was in the boat. It was a large female with a big belly. Beautiful bright colored striped bass from the Coosa River in Alabama. Caught on a shad pattern on my 8wgt fly rod. She was just over 18 pounds on the scale. That was my last fish for the day, my hands were shaking, and I had had about all the excitement I could handle for one morning. After a few pictures we put her back in the water along side the boat, holding her upstream until she started to recover then released her to swim off and live to chase shad another day. I felt satisfaction and relief!
Striped Bass (morone saxatilis). Alabama has an excellent stripe bass fishery. All the major lakes in the state have a good population and spawning into the rivers occurs from spring to early summer as the water temperatures reach 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Last Spring near the end of March the stripe bass were running up the Coosa River from Lay Lake up to the tailwaters of the Logan Martin dam. As the turbines start turning on the dam the shad get active below the dam. The stripe bass travel in schools and herd shad in a similar way that a dog herds cattle. We were in an eighteen-foot boat 100 yards below the dam scanning the top of the water looking for shad breaking the surface. I looked over towards the east bank and I noticed herons standing on the bank above a deep cut in the bank plucking shad from the water, then all the sudden water would start to boil near the bank. The bass were pinning the shad near the bank and then attacking. We took the boat over near the bank and held in the current just off the bank. Mason and I were fishing with 8wgt fly rods with good reels loaded with weight forward floating line and straight 30lb monofilament leader. We were using streamers tied with size one hooks, using white, grey, and light blue bucktail and crystal flash tied as streamer patterns with no weight, in the deceiver style. We would cast against the bank in a forty-five-degree angle to the bank and let the streamer drift out across the current where the shad were running. Often towards the end of the drift or as we started to strip the line back to the boat we would get a strike. The fish would fight hard for several minutes and then we would land them. That morning Mason and I each caught about six bass with the smallest one weighting six pounds. The largest was the eighteen-pound female and took me for a wild ride before getting her into the boat.
If you have never fished for stipe bass with a fly rod I highly recommend giving it a try. If the fish are there it is a high catch probability. They are aggressive feeders and when in attack mode they strike fast and hard. It is a lot of action and fun and they are a beautiful fish to look at!
