Anchovie/Striper fishing 101 is now in session
#1 selecting your chovies, When you are buying chovies make sure they have not been thawed and re-frozen. They should be swimming around in the bag by themselves, not in a block. You also want to buy BIG chovies, not the pencil sized ones. You might have to sift through the stores freezer to find the best looking bag(s) of chovies.
#2 chillin your chovies, Keep the chovies in a cooler with ice and only pull out a few at a time to cut and hook. They should remain rock solid until you are ready to hook them. In hot weather I put 4-5 bags of chovies in a small cooler with a few pounds of dry ice, this cooler is then placed in a larger cooler and the gaps filled with ice. This setup can keep chovies frozen for several days. While fishing, remove 3-4 chovies from the "Deep freeze (small cooler)" and lay them on the lid of the small cooler,,, yet still inside the big cooler. This will allow them to thaw slightly, yet not turn to mush. Cut up chovies on the lid of the small cooler and leave the extra pieces for fishing later. Cutting up rock hard chovies can be difficult so use a strong knife or wait until they thaw a bit.
#3 cuttin your chovies, I usually cut them into 4 parts, head, 2 middle sections and the tail. Chum the tails and heads and bait up with the middle sections. However, sometimes the tail sections work good for bait as it looks like a shad.... And then there was the time when my buddy and I were running out of bait and had a contest who could catch the most stripers on an anchovy head. Think I won with 3 small stripers on 1 chovy head... So the heads can also be used as bait.
#4 hookin your chovies, I have seen 2 good ways to hook chovies for striper fishing.
A- tie a Mustad short shank live bait hook (saltwater style) onto your line and then bury it into a chovie section. The striper's can't see the hook,,,, but they can easily pick off your bait.
B- (my preference) Tie a snap swivel onto your line, push the shank of a treble hook through a section or 2 of cut chovie and then snap the baited treble hook onto your line. I usually have to 2 swivels/hook/bait on my line, separated by 12-24". YES, this is a lot of hardware to have soaking in the water, but you have a greater chance of hooking a fish and baiting up is easy. Plus, it's pretty cool when you have 2 fish on 1 rod.
#5 chummin your chovies, cut up the heads and tails into small 1/4" parts and throw them all around the boat (in the water, not in the boat itself
). Don't chum too much at 1 time, just a few pieces every few minutes to keep the stripers interested in your boat. If there is wind or current, chum so the bait floats back to your boat, not away from it.
#6 fishin your chovies, Cast you line out away from the boat and allow the bait to pendulum down through the water, stripers can strike while it's sinking so be ready. Once your line is below the boat, keep the bait moving, move the rod to one side and then wait for the bait to follow, or rip the rod upward and follow the bait back down with your rod. Stripers like to chase and strike a moving bait. Also, fish at different depths until you find out where the hungry ones are at
#7 settin the hook, Stripers won't slam the bait most of the time and like to pick it off the hook so you have to keep your hand on the rod and line so you can detect them. I like to cradle the rod in my hand, with it perfectly balanced, so they can pull on the line without feeling tension from the line. You will feel, tap, tap, tap, tap, pull... Be ready for the pull and swing back immediately with a big 'ol Bill Dance hook set. Stripers are tricky little devils and you have to set the hook on them.
#8 lighting and boat position, Throw out 1-2 fishing lights to attract bait fish swimming around in the lake. I usually have the lights 5' below the boat to bring the fish to the boat. Stripers like to hang out in deep water and I normally anchor in 50-80' of water. Try a spot for an hour or so and if the stripers don't show, move to another spot,,, moving the boat 100 yards can be the difference between skunked and wide open bites.
#9 moon phase, I find it best to bait fish at night on a new (no) moon. This way, the lights you have hanging off your boat is the only light on the water. The bait fish congregate to your light instead of scattering around in the moon light.
