2 Weeks ago I caught my first keeper Whitney Striper and a couple of Sandies. Last week I caught another keeper striper and a couple of Sandies.
This week I decided I would try bait.
Put forth Just after sunrise with good bait in the bait tank, both Shad and Perch. Anchored up in a likely spot.
I had a bait rod set up in both trolling rod holders. I could see fish surfacing around me so after several minutes with no action I pulled out the Kastmaster and cast out. After several cast it tangle around a guide so I was fooling with a tangle, heard the sound of drag being pulled, I looked up to my left and that bait rod was seriously bent. That rod got jammed in the rod holder because the fish was pulling so hard and I couldn't get it out at first. Took both hands to get it out of the rod holder, then took a picture of the bent rod.



Rod stayed bent like that for several minutes. Drag was pulled repeatedly, and after several minutes I could see the swivel but couldn't see the fish because the sun was in my face, even though it was right under the surface of the water. Then the fish just gave up and the full side view surfaced. I grabbed it with my left hand and it easily shook my thumb out, even as tired as it was. I got both thumbs in that maw and dragged the fish onto the deck.



33.5" 13.45# (after bleeding out) Lets call it 13 1/2
This fish was way to big for my on board 28 quart cooler so I headed in, to put it in the a 54 quart cooler in the truck. Even there I had to wrap it around the inside of the cooler. Left my anchor and anchor float so I could find the same spot again.

Came back and set up again. But now I was getting little bait grabbers. I could tell they were small because of the tiny line jerks. I caught one.



Legal but I like them just a little bigger. Caught another one and let it go too. They depleted what I thought was an adequate bait supply in short order. So I switched to lures.



Rock looks like a mouth. Whitney us such a scenic lake.
Caught a tiny LMB and let it go.
Pedaled and paddled around a bit and manage to put 2 Sandies in the cooler.
3rd week in a row 1 Striper, 2 Sandies at Whitney.

Good job, that dude is big

Very nice fish!!

That awesome!!

Nice fish

That is an awesome healthy looking striper. So much fun. I have rod holders made of resin that stripers have broken off, I went to alum rod holders because of that. Sucks to lose your holder, rod, reel and fish.

Did the striper hit the perch? In NM the stripers here think of bluegills as choc cake seems to me. They also hit the shad, but blue gills live forever and big shad are hard to come by in NM. So gills are a preferred bait. If I was a striper a nice soft shad versus a spiney gill would be my choice.

Rod holder didn't break. It was just difficult to pull the rod out of it at arms length with the fish pulling on it. My rod holders are made out of Electrical type PVC, the grey stuff, glassed in, pretty stout.
Did not catch anything on the perch. But I don't blame the Stripers for that. Got there late and with the trip in and back out the bite was no longer "on". I have been told by several people who should know, that perch make excellent bait. So far, in my limited experience, I haven't caught anything on them.
The Shad that I had were good sized around 5". Not great but certainly Striper sized.
This fish although it looked healthy had a surprisingly totally empty stomach.

I see on the rod holder makes sense. The 5" shad is a good size, we use 10-12" gizzard shad for the big stripers and 7-9" gills. But like anyone you have to use what you can net or catch. The little fish won't mess with your bigger bait. I have caught some big blue cats though.

You are your way to catching a lunker striper, one that is going to pull you around the lake.

Good luck.