Top Striper Tactics and Locations Today
By: Rob Neumann
Striped bass were first introduced to the west in 1959 by the California Department of Fish and Game. (Photo courtesy of In-Fisherman.com)
Here are the best tactics for catching landlocked striped bass
Stripers are not native to the West. They were first introduced to the Colorado River by the California Department of Fish and Game in 1959. During the 1960s, stripers were stocked into lakes Mead and Havasu by fishery agencies in California, Arizona and Nevada. Utah’s Lake Powell received its first stocking in 1974.
Within a few years, popular sport fisheries developed on these Colorado River impoundments. While biologists thought natural reproduction would be limited and populations controlled through stocking, stripers successfully reproduced, resulting in populations with abundant smaller fish that grew more slowly due to limited resources. The good news for anglers is that this has created world-class harvest fisheries, matched with liberal daily bag limits so anglers can help thin the populations and keep them in balance with forage.
Lake Powell and Lake Mead contain vast numbers of striped bass from 3 to 6 pounds. If numbers are your game, consider these reservoirs, though Powell has produced a few stripers from 30 to almost 50 pounds.
Lake Mohave, which lies below Lake Mead and forms part of the border between Arizona and Nevada, has risen to the top spot for production of giant stripers out West including a 63-pound bass taken in 2001. Stripers spawn successfully in Mohave but growth rate apparently hasn’t become depressed due to too many fish, as it has in upstream impoundments on the Colorado. Here, big stripers binge on high-calorie trout that are stocked into the lake.
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