Pacific NW Ron...

[Mike Cork]

Where did you catch that big ole striper?

When I lived in Central California, we used to fish a lake called San Antonio. It was stocked at the time with stripers. They didn't reproduce in the lake so the eventually quit stocking them. But there was a pretty good population. Anyway, during the winter months, we used to throw Zara spooks for them. They also stocked the lake with rainbow trout and the stripers would gang up on the trout after planting.

Most stripers were in the 12-15 pound range but every once in a while we'd hook up with a 25 plus. Lots of fun on bass gear and the way they hit a Zara spook was unforgettable.

[Pacific NW Ron]

Hey Mike, that was a 25.70lb that I caught in lake Norfork, AR when we lived there.  I caught that one on New Years eve day in freezing fog and my brother got two an 11lb and 14lb that day.  That lake puts out a few 50lb plus stripers every year.  It truly is a blast to catch them on top water, especially at night.  Mostly used live bait for them.  I found my self fishing for stripers and walleye more often than bass on that lake.

[Lipripper]

I bet that was a fun fight.

[Mike Cork]

25 pounder, that's a tussle right there. I fished Nor Fork just once, well one weekend. It was a Thanksgiving weekend, and we were mostly after the hybrids. Ended up catching a couple of smaller ones. My father stayed in the striper business but fished Beaver mainly for a few years before he started staying closer to home and perch fishing.

[Pacific NW Ron]

Yep it was a good fight even in the cold water.  The striper isn't the same fight as an aerobatic steelhead but a powerful fish that just plain pulls and runs and doesn't like a hook in it's mouth.
Beaver is also a big striper lake.  I think the numbers of stripers is bigger but overall the average size is smaller.  Still a lot of fun.
The most fun trip I had in the 10 years on norfork was one night when my brothers were visiting we found a school of the striper feeding on top on shad.  I was dark and we couldn't see the shad but could hear about where they were.  We threw live shad in the direction of the ball of shad and all three had one on in the pitch black dark.  The only light we had was the interior floor light in my boat.  We had a tangled mess but we did manage to land all three.  We ended up with six stripers from 10lbs to 14lbs that night.

[Mike Cork]

Fun times... That's the kind of crazy stuff you'll never forget

[Pacific NW Ron]

So right.  That was in June of 1997 and I can still remember that night like it was last week.