Whites were thick but would not touch artificials. Tried several types of slabs, spec rigs, grubs etc. Went to live shad and that did the trick. The fish weren't really biting the shad, you would just see line go slack. The stripers (21", 22", & 23") hit the same way. Ran out of live shad and went to cut, worked just about as well. Beautiful cloudy day on the lake.









14" white w/large shad in mouth

Nice fish and report. Thanks for sharing.

Did I meet you today at ramp 23? I have the maroon tracker boat. I primarily Striper fish. I caught well over 20 Stripers today under birds early morning.

yep that was me, good talking with you

What's going on with that striper? Hopefully that is the same fish, and not many of them look like that.
Not to insult your fish, but sunnuva.....

Nice haul. Are you aware of the consumption warnings on stripers in canyon for women and children. I recall them being very high in mercury.

right? that's what I was thinking....poor guys look emaciated...

been a while since I fished canyon, but the stripers were in much better shape back then....

thanks for the report though!! tight lines!
snookered

Those are three different stripers. They all looked spawned out to me. I don't keep them just catch and release on those.

Here's a pic of a real Canyon Lake Striper from a few years back that my friend caught. 34" fish.

Every striper I've ever caught out of Canyon looked like snakes with no bellie.
Canyon in my opinion would be better suited to Hybrids instead of stocking with stripers.
The only healthy looking stripers are caught below the dam where they feed on the stocked rainbow trout.
Not to mention that they put out a directive that they are high in Mercury and have consumption warnings.

agreed. pound for pound they are very strong fighters and great eating. stripers don't fight all that much unless they get over 25" or so and they kinda taste like straw...

there ya go KingBingo, THAT'S the kind of stripers I remember getting out of canyon back in the day...we mostly trolled or drifted shad off the points down by the dam though, in deeper water....didn't ever really fish the upper end of it or around Crane's Mill...

wonder if the striper are actually spawning? that would be interesting...
snookered

These are 2 of the 20 or so caught and released on the same day. These are plenty healthy!

Good looking fish!

That big one was caught in the middle of January 2011 at the mouth of river trolling a small storm lighting shad. 10 lb test line and spinning rod no less. My friend grabbed the rod and I had to chase the fish down - almost got spooled twice, it was a great fight!

About a week later these same size stripers were on top on the South Cranes Mill point. They wouldn't touch a lure, but I finally got one to hit and he spooled me. You could see them swimming around the boat. Haven't seen 'em like that since.

Yea I haven't caught anything over 26" since I started fishing for them.. But in the last year I've seen the shad spawn twice and the Stripers seem to be being thicker since the first one I caught out there. Full lake levels, current everywhere, and shad spawning should make a good fishery in the near future.

This was a 20 lb 34 inch striped caught 2 years ago north end of lake where river comes in