Striper Talk Striped Bass Fishing, Surfcasting, Boating - View Single Post

CaptRich · 02-13-2012, 12:52 PM

This is an awesome thread! The posts by Flaptail, FishermanTim, & NIB have a lot of interesting observations! I don’t fish for strippers, but rather snook & tarpon down in South Florida. These fish make their living whacking baits from ambush points including shadowlines at night. My fishing more closely resembles FishermanTim’s fishing the shadowlines of bridges & docks but I found Flaptail’s post fascinating. We don’t have many dunes in South Florida, but rather plenty of high rises. I am not sure the moon hiding behind a condo will have the same effect due to the lighting from the structure, but it does remind me of an interesting technique I learned down in Key West, FL. Most of my fishing is done at night, but I saw a local fishing with rather specific tackle and immediately knew what he was targeting (it’s not too difficult to discern between the out of towner’s and the local salts). With the sun high in the sky I walked up the fisherman and asked, “Isn’t the sun a little high in the sky to be snook fishing?” Well, in life & fishing you are always learning and the friendly gentleman recognized me as a fellow snook-fisherman from up the coast and proceeded to tell me how when the wind blows head-on into the shore it stirs up the bottom (The keys are sheltered and have very little wave activity). The resulting silt up & down the shore line gets sucked into the trough and provides a nice 5 to 10 foot wide area of reduced visibility where the snook sit with their nose into the current. I have heard of this technique fishing mud bars, but it was fascinating to see someone pulling snook out (a notoriously finicky eater) with artificials on a white bottom beach in the middle of the day!

Though this isn’t quite the same as shadowline fishing, it is another interesting concept to keep in mind when fishing for strippers on your shorelines. I imagine the wind conditions & current will need to be different in an area with big surf, but you never know when a technique in the back of your mind will spring into action when you observe the described conditions!

02-13-2012, 12:52 PM	#23
CaptRich Registered User Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: South Florida (Miami, Ft Lauderdale & Biscayne Bay). Posts: 1	This is an awesome thread! The posts by Flaptail, FishermanTim, & NIB have a lot of interesting observations! I don’t fish for strippers, but rather snook & tarpon down in South Florida. These fish make their living whacking baits from ambush points including shadowlines at night. My fishing more closely resembles FishermanTim’s fishing the shadowlines of bridges & docks but I found Flaptail’s post fascinating. We don’t have many dunes in South Florida, but rather plenty of high rises. I am not sure the moon hiding behind a condo will have the same effect due to the lighting from the structure, but it does remind me of an interesting technique I learned down in Key West, FL. Most of my fishing is done at night, but I saw a local fishing with rather specific tackle and immediately knew what he was targeting (it’s not too difficult to discern between the out of towner’s and the local salts). With the sun high in the sky I walked up the fisherman and asked, “Isn’t the sun a little high in the sky to be snook fishing?” Well, in life & fishing you are always learning and the friendly gentleman recognized me as a fellow snook-fisherman from up the coast and proceeded to tell me how when the wind blows head-on into the shore it stirs up the bottom (The keys are sheltered and have very little wave activity). The resulting silt up & down the shore line gets sucked into the trough and provides a nice 5 to 10 foot wide area of reduced visibility where the snook sit with their nose into the current. I have heard of this technique fishing mud bars, but it was fascinating to see someone pulling snook out (a notoriously finicky eater) with artificials on a white bottom beach in the middle of the day! Though this isn’t quite the same as shadowline fishing, it is another interesting concept to keep in mind when fishing for strippers on your shorelines. I imagine the wind conditions & current will need to be different in an area with big surf, but you never know when a technique in the back of your mind will spring into action when you observe the described conditions!