Murray 3/3

I thought I had already done this report, but obviously I was wrong. Getting old is hell, I'm not sure what goes first, vision, memory, or sex drive, but none of them are pleasant. Anyway, back to the report. SeaRay and I were planning a long lining trip for this weekend on Murray. I went last week to do a little scouting around. I went to Murray three times and never could find any big concentration of fish. March 3rd was my best day, I boated a dozen nice crappie, and a boat load of stripers, including a few nice ones. In my opinion, the stripers are getting worse than the White perch on Murray and would like to see more liberal limits to lessen their numbers. The other two trips produced fewer crappie, and the same number of striped bass.

Attachment 232104

Thursday's box shot

Hey Tim that's some nice stripers on top. The 3rd was that thursday a week ago? Anyway I was there thursday a week ago and it was windy! Congratulations on a good mess of fish. Thanks for the report and pic.


PS: It is tough getting older. lol!!

Thanks for sharing the trip with us. I hope you taught Ray where and how to catch them up river. I am going to try up the river tomorrow and see if I can find a few. Personally I love catching the stripers on crappie rods as long as I can handle them without messing to much up.

Tim, that sounds about like the Lake Murray of now. The striper are an issue for sure and I brought that up a while back on here. You pretty much get two opinions: 1- if you enjoy striper fishing then the striper are the best thing in the whole wide world and have no effect on the other fish in the lake or 2- if you don't striper fish, your tired of the 21" limit and tired of the abundance of striper and think they present a problem to the lake.

I'm of the second thought process. To be completely honest, I can't stand them. I put them in the exact same category as a white perch. I was keeping my fingers crossed that when they opened the floods gates back in October that 90% of the striper would be washed out through the trees down stream, but it's obvious that didn't happen.

At any rate, congrats on your catch and thanks for sharing

I dont mind mind an occasional striper bite while long lining, when you get 8 on at one time that's a problem. On the day I found a few biting crappie in Sping creek in a two hundred yard stretch, I felt I was on to something. All of a sudden the birds appeared, 5 striper boats, and I could keep the striper off the jigs. I never caught another crappie after that. Lake Norris in Tennessee used be a very good crappie lake, years after striper were introduced the crappie population became non existent, and has never recovered. Another issue at Murray is fishing pressure. No matter what day you fish, if the weather is nice or the fish are perceived as biting you can't find a parking place at any of the ramps. No shortage of good fisherman either. Poor crappie doesn't stand much of a chance.

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Originally Posted by Crappie Buster

Tim, that sounds about like the Lake Murray of now. The striper are an issue for sure and I brought that up a while back on here. You pretty much get two opinions: 1- if you enjoy striper fishing then the striper are the best thing in the whole wide world and have no effect on the other fish in the lake or 2- if you don't striper fish, your tired of the 21" limit and tired of the abundance of striper and think they present a problem to the lake.

I'm of the second thought process. To be completely honest, I can't stand them. I put them in the exact same category as a white perch. I was keeping my fingers crossed that when they opened the floods gates back in October that 90% of the striper would be washed out through the trees down stream, but it's obvious that didn't happen.

At any rate, congrats on your catch and thanks for sharing

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Anytime a striper gets one of my jigs it's an instant break-off. A striper is a fish that I have no desire to bring home so therefore I would do all I could to avoid a single fish from wrecking my entire spread.

Enjoyed the report and pic.