I have never caught a striper.   What crankbaits will work on these monsters?   Any plastics?  Where do they normally roam on inland lakes?

     Supposedly we have sandbass shallow to deep here.  Black bass mid way to deep.  Stripers on the bottom with the big ole monster cats.   Our cats can be well over 100 lbs.   They tend to eat big fish to.    A 100 lbs cat can do damage to black bass and sandbass as well as any other small fish in these lakes.  

   A friend told me he was watching his buddy near a huge cat.   Said his buddy kicked the cat in the face with his fin, (scuba diving)  the cat then attempts to swallow the mans leg.   My friend said the guy had to use his other foot to kick himself out of the mouth of the cat.    So I imagine cats can rough up even stripers here.  

     With all this in mind, where might the big ole stripers be?   Btw, we have tons and tons of shad on these lakes.   Blacks nail them in the shallows and sandies hit them top to bottom.   Supposedly under the sandies are bigger sandies and under them, black bass. 

      I live in Texas.   The vast majority of lakes are literally dammed rivers.   The dams cause them to grow wider and hence they became lakes.  These lakes are supplied with fingerling fish of a wide variety of species.  Bass (like 5 kinds I think) crappie, catfish, perch, blue gill, and other panfish. 

        The lakes can rise up and down 10- maybe 30 ft at times.   Water temps right now are in the high 80s.   Thermal changes begin at about 6 ft.  Deep waters can be in the 50 's .Water colors can vary from a light green tint to a reddish brown tint.  

     Tons of downed and submerged trees and bushes.   Thats all the info I can give you other than I fish from a boat 

I appreciate any replies...   Iron

This time of year the strippers are holding in the coolest water they can find . In Arizona that means main lake basin areas . A big crankbait that has worked for me is the Husky Cisco Kid  #600 .

If the fish are holding deep to stay cooler than i would say a crank bait may not be what you want to use. You may have better luck with a 1 or 2 oz bucktail jig with a curly tail. You can drift & cast or anchor up if you find them. Stripers like moving water over almost any other conditions. If you find where the water is flowing & find some structure they will likely be on the down current side of it. When they school up & start coming to the surface any crank bait you have will almost work. I've caught them on eveyrthing from rattle traps to rapala's. If live eels are allowed as bait use them. Stripers will go crazy over eels. Here we can only use them certain times of the year so check your local laws regarding them. Good luck!

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