Boiling Striped Bass - Freshwater Fishing Feeding Frenzy

by John
(The River)

One late night, a buddy and I headed out to one of our favorite fishing spots for some striped bass fishing. We had brought some fresh shad, beef jerky and a little alcohol with us. Well, I was driving so no drinking for me that evening.

The section of river we went to is known as the “Y” because there is a section where the water forks into a “Y” shape. From what I understand is that at one point in time that one of the forked sections had been dammed up from the rest of the river. I'm not completely sure, but either the dam gave way and collapsed and then was cleaned up, or it was just removed for whatever reason.

The river has a sandy bottom and is quite shallow, just a couple or a few feet deep in most areas. We've caught largemouth bass, catfish and striped bass. There are some big trophy stripers that run through there during their spawning periods and the action is off the hook at times.

Anyway, we pulled up onto the levy and came to one of the first good spots we like to fish at. I hopped out of the car, quickly grabbed my gear and headed down to the water. As I was making my way down the long steep hillside I noticed quite a bit of movement in the water.

I reached the water and almost couldn't believe what I was seeing. There were striped bass everywhere. The water was “boiling” like crazy. My heart was pounding with excitement. I yelled up to my buddy to hurry his butt up and get down here.

I immediately baited my hook with one of the fresh shad and tossed it out there. I just knew I was going to catch some monster stripers that night.

My buddy made his way down the embankment and was in just as much awe as I was. So he baited up his rod which was matched with an awesome Abu Garcia Ambassadeur bait runner fishing reel.

His Abu Garcia Ambassadeur Baitcast Reel is a really great reel and he doesn't fish without it. It's his go-to reel that he has caught a ton of fish with.

We waited a few minutes before reeling back in to check our bait and cast to a different spot. Then we set our fishing rods rested on pole holders and grabbed our other rods.

We each had our second rods rigged with crankbaits. We began flinging those out like crazy. We made casts everywhere with different speeds of reeling them in.

Nothing. Nothing at all. All of the commotion had died down. Those stripers had been boiling for a good 10 to 15 minutes and we couldn't hook into any one of them. We were just so disappointed.

We kept fishing for the next couple of hours. Every now and then we would see a fish jump. And every now and then we would get a tug on the line. But we just couldn't get hooked into any of those darn fish. How is that even possible?

They outsmarted us that day. Next time I tell ya, next time.