Have a holiday striper

Topwaters, swimbaits, bucktails are effective

I make my living fishing for bass, and I certainly love to fish for them, but sometimes I like to fish for other species of gamefish. I love to fish for bream, crappie and striped bass, and December is the time I fish for stripers and hybrids in Lake Murray and Clarks Hill and Wateree and even Santee Cooper.

I like to fish for stripers in December because they’re so active. The water has gotten cold and the shad are slowing up, and the stripers become active and take advantage of them. When the water gets cold and the bass and crappie slow down, the stripers are still going. And they’re feeding machines. They swim and eat, swim and eat, swim and eat. You can catch a lot of fish, and I like to take some home, filet them and cook ’em on the grill or fry them up.

The first thing I do is look for birds. One thing about December that’s great is that the seagulls are here. You look for seagulls; they fish for a living, too, so they’re in touch with where the baitfish are, and where the baitfish are, that’s where the stripers will be.

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