May is the best month to fish for striped bass at Jordan Lake, according to a veteran fishing guide.
“The water temperature usually reaches 65 degrees by May, and striped bass all over the lake get turned on to feeding,” said Troy Roberson (Striper Sniper Adventures, 919.656.1887, www.striper-sniper.com).
A public safety officer for the town of Pittsboro, Roberson cruises the edges of the creek channels and river channels of the 14,000-acre lake to find stripers during May, watching for baitfish schools to show up on his depth-finder screen. When he finds a big school of shad, stripers often will be underneath them.
“Best baits to troll are threadfin shad and bass shiners,” Roberson said, “but trollers also use artificial lures.”
He likes big gizzard shad, as long as 10 inches, when he’s trolling for deep fish and said he believes bigger baits catch bigger stripers, which can reach 14 pounds.
When he finds good concentrations of deep fish (or is running low on live baits), Roberson sometimes switches to Striper Swiper lures and adds a chartreuse-colored worm-snake trailer.
“After the spawn, stripers are hungry and will attack just about any type of lure you put in front of them,” he said.
When trolling, he uses lead-core line with 20-pound test monofilament and 15-pound-test fluorocarbon leaders with a 2-ounce egg sinker and 1-0 circle hooks.
“When you’re trolling, you don’t have to set the hooks,” he said. “The stripers will hook themselves with circle hooks. I like circle hooks because they almost always catch stripers in the corners of their mouth, and you can avoid deep gut hooks.”
Most Jordan striped bass will weigh from 3 to 7 pounds, but larger fish aren’t uncommon. The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission has been stocking striped bass fingerlings in the lake for eight years.
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