Lake Texoma Striper Fishing Blog

  We set out at the break of dawn, darkness lingers due to the dense fog so we are going slow in the boat watching out for other boaters. As we go I'm keeping an eye and ear out for the gulls which we follow this time of year to show us the feeding fish, in the fog you can hear them before you can see them. The fog creates a mystical setting out on the lake, being on the water without any sight of land. As we are wandering through the mist, suddenly a big flock of gulls and loons appear, diving on the shad as the stripers are pushing to the surface in a big feeding frenzy. Excitement builds and we pull up and setup a drift, dropping down our big 2 oz. chartreuse slabs off the side of the boat. I have 5 people in the boat fishing with me today and 3 of them hook up before the slabs even hit bottom. One of them is a big fish pulling drag, as I get the 2 smaller fish in the boat and working to get them unhooked the other 2 fishermen hook up as well. After a fight, we finally get the big fish to the boat and land it, it looks to be about 8 pounds so we take time for a picture but I have to be fast as someone has already hooked up another fish and I already have 5 fish flopping in the bottom of the boat because there is no time to put them in the cooler. This is what fishing in November is all about!

November is one of the best months of the year to fish as far as the consistency of feeding fish day after day. Trips as I have described above are a common occurrence this time of the year and chasing the birds adds an exciting element to the fishing as we join in with them in the feeding frenzy. We are typically using slabs and casting swim baits this time of year in my boat but live bait can work well too. Often the schools of fish are moving fast, we will pull up to the birds and drop down and hook up a few fish and by the time we get the fish landed in the boat, the school of fish will have moved out from under us and we have to move up in front of the birds again. Because the fish are moving so fast we are moving a lot to keep up with them, this makes it easier to fish with lures because you don't have to keep baiting out hooks. Many find that lures are more fun and effective to use and I'm typically going to fish with lures for most of the year, however I'm not above using bait when lure fishing is slow. We listen to the fish.

Fishing will be good all though the winter months, in fact winter is when we catch some of our biggest fish of the year. As we get into December we will start using swim baits and fishing over structure when the birds are not working, this structure fishing with swim baits is one of my favorite patterns to fish as we tend to catch some of our biggest fish this way.
If you have to fish a weekend due to work, its a good idea to plan in advance as my weekends will book up about a month out in the winter, though I will often be a lot more flexible during the week so we can usually plan trips according to the weather. The fishing is always better during the week too since we don't have the added weekend boat pressure to contend with. You can book your trip online at www.stripersinc.com or give me a call or text at (903)-815-1609 and I'll get you setup over the phone. If you have any questions about our trips, don't hesitate to ask. I'll be looking forward to fishing with you.

Your Lake Texoma Fishing Guide,
Brian Prichard
Stripers Inc.
www.stripersinc.com
(903)815-1609