FINK — Hot, windy weather is a turnoff for many anglers but not for Lake Texoma fishing guide Chris Carey.
When many anglers are struggling under windy conditions to use live bait in rough, open waters as they did Tuesday under 35 mph wind, Carey heads for the banks with his arsenal of artificial lures.“This wind is going to be rough on those live-bait guys, but I have some places we’ll be able to fish where the top-water action really has been hot lately,” Carey told Luke Clayton of Combine and me Tuesday morning as we boarded his boat at Highport Marina.Within minutes, Carey stopped his boat near a small island. He already had several rods rigged with two of his favorite top-water lures — Pencil Poppers and Chug BugsWe began casting the lures as close as possible to the banks of the island and retrieving them with sharp jerks from our rods to create as much commotion with them as possible atop the rolling waves.Within minutes a striped bass weighing about six pounds struck Clayton’s Chug Bug in the shallow water. That fish set the stage for the great action that followed.When the action slowed, we moved to two similar islands that also provided protection from the high winds. Although several stripers were caught on the Pencil Poppers, it was the more noisy Chug Bugs that seemed to attract most of the strikes. The two largest fish weighed around eight pounds, but Carey said he has caught much larger stripers in the same area on surface lures in recent weeks.“This is my favorite type of fishing,” Carey said. “You just can’t beat the excitement you get when a striped bass blows up on a top-water lure. I won’t say I will never use live bait, but I try to specialize in artificial lures.”The best action during the past few weeks has been during the early morning hours when the fish are feeding on shad that are attempting to spawn in the warm shallows near the banks, Carey said. When that action slows, Carey moves out to deeper water and casts soft plastic Rip Tide (shad-like lures) rigged on lead-head hooks and bumps them along the bottom.Carey said the shallow-water action should remain good as long as the shad are spawning.More information on Lake Texoma striper fishing is available by calling 877-786-4477 or by visiting striperexpress.com.Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
