Time for Stripers?
It’s
not weather, alone, that governs bird migration autumn and spring. It’s the
amount of daylight in the sky.
I’ve
watched skeins of ducks and geese fly into the teeth of advancing cold fronts
straight out of the north when the days lengthen in spring. In fact, I watched
it happen last week on a trip to a family funeral in Nebraska. My three
brothers and I were there to bury Dad.
My
brother Vernon and I drove with our wives straight north on Highway 81 out of
Edmond into that southeastern corner of Nebraska often referred to as the
Rainwater Basin, so low and waterlogged is the country there at this time of
the year because of the winter’s melting snows. Roadsides in every direction
were only recently opened, and three-foot snow drifts were piled high.
Grandpa
Harry Vollertsen had a dairy farm there that started our father’s life, and consequently
our own. Ducks, geese, and sandhill cranes choked every available body of
water, no matter the size, as far as you could see. If you looked into it, the
sky was full of chevrons of flight birds, wondering, doubtless, was there any
room left for them.
All
the bird activity put me to thinking about the coming fish “migration” in our
own country here along the Arkansas River. Their main primal goad, the fish I
mean, is not the amount of sunlight in the sky, but the water temperature
around them fueled by the sunlight.
The
closer the water temperature gets to fifty degrees Fahrenheit, the more aroused
become fish species of every sort in our country, sand bass (white bass if you
prefer), and their close cousins, stripers, foremost among them; crappie, bass,
and catfish soon to follow.
Years
ago, somewhere along about the late 1960’s or early 1970’s, when first stocked
into Lake Keystone, the Oklahoma Wildlife Department tagged and monitored the
earliest striped bass migrations up both the Cimarron and Arkansas arms of the
lake. Nobody then knew what the fish were up to, where they went, at what time
of the year, where they spent most of their time, nor what to expect from a
species of fish about as foreign to this country as palm trees would be along
our end of Route 66.
The
tagging program and its early returns provided plenty of answers. Striped bass
location maps were printed and distributed in sporting goods stores around the
area that located precisely, so much as tag returns would allow, where the fish
assembled pretty much at all times of the year, but during the spring spawning
season.
New
striper fishermen were encouraged to pick up as many of the maps as they
wanted, and to use them in future reference at different times of the year. I
did that, and still have a collection I use and refer to. I won’t say it’s more
valuable than one of the new down scan electronic locators, but over the years
it has gotten me headed in the right direction quicker than throwing darts at a
map on my garage wall.
Recent
back surgery is supposed to keep me from behind a steering wheel for two
months, let alone any bumpy rides seaward in an open boat. If I get knocked in
the head on the way to Walmart and wake up with a band of pirates in the middle
of Lake Keystone, I’m bettin’ I’m the only one there with the treasure map full
of x’es.
I’ll
say this: right about now on Lake Keystone, you need to think about the upper
arms of both the Cimarron and the Arkansas just downstream from where the lake
turns into a river again. Troll lipless crankbaits, or fish live shad just off
the bottom in depths that are going to change from day to day because the fish
are moving.
I
walked down to the back end of Baker’s Branch in front of my house this
afternoon. We had one day this past week with air temperatures up in the 80’s.
I dropped a small electronic thermometer into the water at my feet and got a
reading of 46 degrees.
Main
lake? I don’t know, but I’d say things are headed in the right direction.
There’s a fish migration going on.
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