05-06-2005, 05:27 PM
[center][size 2] Lake [font "Times New Roman"]Mead[/font][font "Times New Roman"]'s favorite sporting fish is brash, big and plentiful. Anglers with a little knowledge and the right fish sense have the chance to come up with a barrelful of stripers. By Charles W. Crunden[/font][/center] [center][font "Times New Roman"] [/font][/center]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 4] Lake Mead's Bass Bonanza[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]It looked like a school of albacore boiling on the surface, but I was on lake Mead, not the ocean. So I knew it had to be stripers. Threadfin shad were flying in every direction trying to escape the savage fish that were snap­ping at their tails. The turmoil covered more than an acre of the lake's surface and stopped almost as soon as it had begun, but not before we had flipped a pair of Cordell Spot lures into the fray.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Both of us had a hookup almost immediately, and within five minutes there were two 8-pound beauties flop­ping in the live well.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Don Payne, manager of the las Vegas News Bureau, and I had gone to lake Mead that morning in October with a film crew to record a few min­utes of fishing action for a Southern Nevada promotional movie being pre­pared for distribution throughout the world. We considered ourselves lucky because similar trips in the past for trout or largemouth bass took a lot more effort to satisfy the photogra­phers. But that's the way it is with stripers in lake Mead: a little knowl­edge of the" fish and its habits and the proper fishing tackle, and almost any­one can catch at least one.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]The striper is one of Southern Nevada's most spectacular success stories. Introduced into lake Mead 10 years ago to offset a decline in large­mouth bass populations, the striped bass likes its new home and has devel­oped into the lake's most popular fish.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]The original striped bass stock was obtained from the Sacramento River Delta area by the California Depart­ment of Fish and Game and trans­ported to Lake Mead in Nevada Department of Wildlife (NOW) fish hauling trucks. Nevada shared 51,300 two- to eight-inch fish with the state of Arizona and releases were made in Las Vegas Bay and at Temple Bar during 1969 and 1970. Plants in 1971 and 1972 put 1.000 stripers in the Overton Arm, 2,000 more into Las Vegas Bay.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Natural reproduction of stripers in lake Mead was first documented in 1974. "Small fish, obviously too young to have been from the original stock, began showing in the catch along with a few individuals in the 15 to 20 pound class:' says Butch Padilla, NOW fish­ery biologist.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]"Up until that time, 1974, the major­ity of the few stripers caught were taken accidentally. Most fishermen were still concentrating their efforts on largemouth bass and trout."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]The number of anglers seeking strip­ers began to increase in 1975 and has doubled each year since with corresponding increases in the annual catch. Stripers of 31 lbs. 2 oz and 25 lbs. 4 oz. were caught during 1975 and sig­naled the beginning of a new era in Lake Mead's fishery.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Petite Marty Ham of Las Vegas shocked Southern Nevada's fishing fra­ternity in 1976 when she established the new Lake Mead striped bass record at 37 lbs. 10 oz. The record held for more than a year until Las Vegan Chuck Benedict boated a monster that tipped the scales at 43 lbs. 10 oz. Another 14 months passed before the record was broken again, this time by Jim Brady of Henderson, with a 47 ­pound fish taken in May last year on an anchovy just above Boulder Dam.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Brady was an ardent largemouth bass fisherman until late '78. "When I found out you could catch 15-pound stripers on the surface:' he said, "I was hooked. To consistently catch large­mouth bass, you have to be good, but the striper is a fish that anyone can catch."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Brady looked concerned when he said, 'Tm worried about my 6-year-old son. I don't think he's gone more than 15 minutes without catching a striper. How's he going to feel about the sport when fishing eventually slows down or if we have to move to some other part of the country?"'[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Young Brady's biggest so far was a 15-pounder, and according to his father, "I had to hold him around the waist to keep him from being pulled into the water."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Brady, an ironworker, claims 41 fishing trips between July 1 and Sep­tember IS in 1979, 39 of which were successful for stripers. He credits his initial interest and much of his current success to the advice of Bob Glasspurn, a bait and tackle shop operator in Hen­derson. "Glassburn knows where the stripers are at any time [/font]of day or night [font "Times New Roman"]and on any day during the year. If he tells you to fish at 10:15 p.m. 100 yards off a certain rock south of Hemenway Harbor and to sink your anchovy to 37 ft. 4 in., do it. You'll catch a striper."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Glassburn is not only an ardent fish­erman himself but he has the added advantage of talking to the majority of anglers on their way to and from the lake. Their comments, plus Glass­burn's intimate knowledge of lake Mead, apparently make a combination that Brady has used to advantage.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]"I figure I know the lake pretty well," Brady says, "but those few times I've come back empty-handed, Glass­burn has gone to his map and said, Try here, here, and here: and you know what? I've gone back out to the spots he pinpointed and I've caught fish."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Glassburn credits much of his striper knowledge to an electronic device called a recording fathometer or graph machine. Anglers have used a flashing type of fathometer for many years to locate schools, but the graph machine, which draws a picture of the bottom [/font][font "Times New Roman"]and any fish, too, only recently has been adopted by sport fishermen on freshwater lakes. The fisherman with a graph machine has the edge and can quickly pass over unproductive waters to concentrate his efforts where the fish are.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]"I fished one small school of stripers in Boulder Canyon every day for about two weeks last summer and caught fish every time," said Brady, "but if it hadn't been for my graph machine, [/font]I would never have known they were [font "Times New Roman"]moving about 100 yards each day to a new location."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Lake Mead anglers have caught stripers on just about every conceiv­able type of lure and bait. Silver jigging spoons at 50 to 100 feet during the win­ter, Big Mac and Cordell Redfin lures trolled in spring and fall, Cordell Spot and Pencil Popper lures cast in coves and along the shore and to rising fish during the fall and winter months. and big waterdogs and goldfish just off the bottom during the summer have all paid dividends, but a relative new­comer-the frozen anchovy-has made the biggest impact of all.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Vernon Wells of Henderson, current holder of the state record with a 53 lb. 4 oz. striper from the Colorado River below Davis Dam, used anchovies with good success in that area and, along with Gaines Romans of Hender­son, pioneered their use on Lake Mead in the spring of 1979. The anchovy worked so well and achieved such-pop­ularity as a bait that it is now stocked by all las Vegas area bait shops and some supermarkets as well.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Birds have played a big part in fish­ing success, particularly during the fall and winter months when wheeling or diving gulls or grebes on the water sig­nal the presence of shad below. The Western grebe is a rather large bird with a long neck and a sharply pointed bill that can dive to depths of 100 feet; but its presence tells you little more than there are shad somewhere below.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]The smaller eared grebe, on the other hand, is a sure sign of shad at shallow depth because it feeds just below the surface. The fisherman in the know glides quietly into the birds' midst’s, preferably with an electric trolling motor or paddle, casting surface or shallow running lures as he goes.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]The threadfin shad is a native of the Eastern United States and was planted into Lake Mead by NDW in the mid­-fifties to serve as food for game fish.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]The threadfin has prospered in South­ern Nevada waters and deserves nearly all the credit for the success of striped bass. Shad reach a maximum length of seven inches and school in numbers ranging from a few hundred to tens of thousands. Whether the shad are at 100 feet or at the surface, there are usually striped bass nearby feeding or stalking the school.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Most anglers pursue stripers with a boat because of the mobility it pro­vides, but there is a growing fraternity that have chosen the shoreline for their field of action. John Kimak, an instruc­tor at las Vegas' Chaparral High School. is the group's leading pro­ponent and can be found casting his lures throughout the year during the early morning hours. 'The early morn­ing is the best time for stripers," he says, "and I can get a lot of fishing in before school if I get to the lake by four a.m. "Quite often the fish are right up against the shore, but use at least a 12-foot rod with a big capacity spin­ning reel for those times when the striper is cruising deeper waters."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Kimak recalls one winter night last year after the Department of Wildlife planted trout at Hemenway Harbor and anglers flocked to the shore for the stripers they expected to be lured into the area. "I arrived during the middle of the night in a snowstorm and was greeted by a shoreline t
ling with lights from a hundred gas lanterns. I wasn't about to fish in the middle of this crowd so I moved up the[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]swimming beach a half mile [/font]or so and [font "Times New Roman"]began casting. It was pitch black and the line was freezing in the guides, but I had my three fish, all 18 pounds or more, in just a few minutes."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]By mutual consent, Nevada and Ari­zona boosted the striped bass limit in January rom three to five fish daily and in possession and removed the 16-inch minimum length require­ment.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Kimak has teamed with Bob Glass­burn on several occasions [/font]to present [font "Times New Roman"]free fishing clinics to all comers. Liber­ally spiced with exciting color slides of trophy stripers and demonstrations on fishing tackle and electronic equip­ment, Kimak covers shore fishing and Glassburn techniques from a boat. The response to their first clinic in the fall of 1978 was so overwhelming that many would-be students had to be turned away. This led to another clinic shortly thereafter. Kimak says, "We'll continue teaching as long as there are people who want to learn. Lake Mead is the finest striper fishery in the coun­try with more than enough fish for everyone. I'd like everybody to enjoy this sport as much as I do." [/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Charles W. Crunden is an information officer with the Nevada Depart­ment of Wildlife and a Las Vegas TV celebrity.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 2] [font "comic sans ms"] There are some typo's that I can't staighten out for one reason or another. The preveiw shows everything normal but the final product is a little out of wack. Disregard any ( ­ Happy reading.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Take care,[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][/font][font "Times New Roman"]David[/font]
[signature]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 4] Lake Mead's Bass Bonanza[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]It looked like a school of albacore boiling on the surface, but I was on lake Mead, not the ocean. So I knew it had to be stripers. Threadfin shad were flying in every direction trying to escape the savage fish that were snap­ping at their tails. The turmoil covered more than an acre of the lake's surface and stopped almost as soon as it had begun, but not before we had flipped a pair of Cordell Spot lures into the fray.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Both of us had a hookup almost immediately, and within five minutes there were two 8-pound beauties flop­ping in the live well.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Don Payne, manager of the las Vegas News Bureau, and I had gone to lake Mead that morning in October with a film crew to record a few min­utes of fishing action for a Southern Nevada promotional movie being pre­pared for distribution throughout the world. We considered ourselves lucky because similar trips in the past for trout or largemouth bass took a lot more effort to satisfy the photogra­phers. But that's the way it is with stripers in lake Mead: a little knowl­edge of the" fish and its habits and the proper fishing tackle, and almost any­one can catch at least one.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]The striper is one of Southern Nevada's most spectacular success stories. Introduced into lake Mead 10 years ago to offset a decline in large­mouth bass populations, the striped bass likes its new home and has devel­oped into the lake's most popular fish.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]The original striped bass stock was obtained from the Sacramento River Delta area by the California Depart­ment of Fish and Game and trans­ported to Lake Mead in Nevada Department of Wildlife (NOW) fish hauling trucks. Nevada shared 51,300 two- to eight-inch fish with the state of Arizona and releases were made in Las Vegas Bay and at Temple Bar during 1969 and 1970. Plants in 1971 and 1972 put 1.000 stripers in the Overton Arm, 2,000 more into Las Vegas Bay.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Natural reproduction of stripers in lake Mead was first documented in 1974. "Small fish, obviously too young to have been from the original stock, began showing in the catch along with a few individuals in the 15 to 20 pound class:' says Butch Padilla, NOW fish­ery biologist.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]"Up until that time, 1974, the major­ity of the few stripers caught were taken accidentally. Most fishermen were still concentrating their efforts on largemouth bass and trout."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]The number of anglers seeking strip­ers began to increase in 1975 and has doubled each year since with corresponding increases in the annual catch. Stripers of 31 lbs. 2 oz and 25 lbs. 4 oz. were caught during 1975 and sig­naled the beginning of a new era in Lake Mead's fishery.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Petite Marty Ham of Las Vegas shocked Southern Nevada's fishing fra­ternity in 1976 when she established the new Lake Mead striped bass record at 37 lbs. 10 oz. The record held for more than a year until Las Vegan Chuck Benedict boated a monster that tipped the scales at 43 lbs. 10 oz. Another 14 months passed before the record was broken again, this time by Jim Brady of Henderson, with a 47 ­pound fish taken in May last year on an anchovy just above Boulder Dam.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Brady was an ardent largemouth bass fisherman until late '78. "When I found out you could catch 15-pound stripers on the surface:' he said, "I was hooked. To consistently catch large­mouth bass, you have to be good, but the striper is a fish that anyone can catch."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Brady looked concerned when he said, 'Tm worried about my 6-year-old son. I don't think he's gone more than 15 minutes without catching a striper. How's he going to feel about the sport when fishing eventually slows down or if we have to move to some other part of the country?"'[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Young Brady's biggest so far was a 15-pounder, and according to his father, "I had to hold him around the waist to keep him from being pulled into the water."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Brady, an ironworker, claims 41 fishing trips between July 1 and Sep­tember IS in 1979, 39 of which were successful for stripers. He credits his initial interest and much of his current success to the advice of Bob Glasspurn, a bait and tackle shop operator in Hen­derson. "Glassburn knows where the stripers are at any time [/font]of day or night [font "Times New Roman"]and on any day during the year. If he tells you to fish at 10:15 p.m. 100 yards off a certain rock south of Hemenway Harbor and to sink your anchovy to 37 ft. 4 in., do it. You'll catch a striper."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Glassburn is not only an ardent fish­erman himself but he has the added advantage of talking to the majority of anglers on their way to and from the lake. Their comments, plus Glass­burn's intimate knowledge of lake Mead, apparently make a combination that Brady has used to advantage.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]"I figure I know the lake pretty well," Brady says, "but those few times I've come back empty-handed, Glass­burn has gone to his map and said, Try here, here, and here: and you know what? I've gone back out to the spots he pinpointed and I've caught fish."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Glassburn credits much of his striper knowledge to an electronic device called a recording fathometer or graph machine. Anglers have used a flashing type of fathometer for many years to locate schools, but the graph machine, which draws a picture of the bottom [/font][font "Times New Roman"]and any fish, too, only recently has been adopted by sport fishermen on freshwater lakes. The fisherman with a graph machine has the edge and can quickly pass over unproductive waters to concentrate his efforts where the fish are.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]"I fished one small school of stripers in Boulder Canyon every day for about two weeks last summer and caught fish every time," said Brady, "but if it hadn't been for my graph machine, [/font]I would never have known they were [font "Times New Roman"]moving about 100 yards each day to a new location."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Lake Mead anglers have caught stripers on just about every conceiv­able type of lure and bait. Silver jigging spoons at 50 to 100 feet during the win­ter, Big Mac and Cordell Redfin lures trolled in spring and fall, Cordell Spot and Pencil Popper lures cast in coves and along the shore and to rising fish during the fall and winter months. and big waterdogs and goldfish just off the bottom during the summer have all paid dividends, but a relative new­comer-the frozen anchovy-has made the biggest impact of all.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Vernon Wells of Henderson, current holder of the state record with a 53 lb. 4 oz. striper from the Colorado River below Davis Dam, used anchovies with good success in that area and, along with Gaines Romans of Hender­son, pioneered their use on Lake Mead in the spring of 1979. The anchovy worked so well and achieved such-pop­ularity as a bait that it is now stocked by all las Vegas area bait shops and some supermarkets as well.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Birds have played a big part in fish­ing success, particularly during the fall and winter months when wheeling or diving gulls or grebes on the water sig­nal the presence of shad below. The Western grebe is a rather large bird with a long neck and a sharply pointed bill that can dive to depths of 100 feet; but its presence tells you little more than there are shad somewhere below.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]The smaller eared grebe, on the other hand, is a sure sign of shad at shallow depth because it feeds just below the surface. The fisherman in the know glides quietly into the birds' midst’s, preferably with an electric trolling motor or paddle, casting surface or shallow running lures as he goes.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]The threadfin shad is a native of the Eastern United States and was planted into Lake Mead by NDW in the mid­-fifties to serve as food for game fish.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]The threadfin has prospered in South­ern Nevada waters and deserves nearly all the credit for the success of striped bass. Shad reach a maximum length of seven inches and school in numbers ranging from a few hundred to tens of thousands. Whether the shad are at 100 feet or at the surface, there are usually striped bass nearby feeding or stalking the school.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Most anglers pursue stripers with a boat because of the mobility it pro­vides, but there is a growing fraternity that have chosen the shoreline for their field of action. John Kimak, an instruc­tor at las Vegas' Chaparral High School. is the group's leading pro­ponent and can be found casting his lures throughout the year during the early morning hours. 'The early morn­ing is the best time for stripers," he says, "and I can get a lot of fishing in before school if I get to the lake by four a.m. "Quite often the fish are right up against the shore, but use at least a 12-foot rod with a big capacity spin­ning reel for those times when the striper is cruising deeper waters."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Kimak recalls one winter night last year after the Department of Wildlife planted trout at Hemenway Harbor and anglers flocked to the shore for the stripers they expected to be lured into the area. "I arrived during the middle of the night in a snowstorm and was greeted by a shoreline t
ling with lights from a hundred gas lanterns. I wasn't about to fish in the middle of this crowd so I moved up the[/font] [font "Times New Roman"]swimming beach a half mile [/font]or so and [font "Times New Roman"]began casting. It was pitch black and the line was freezing in the guides, but I had my three fish, all 18 pounds or more, in just a few minutes."[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]By mutual consent, Nevada and Ari­zona boosted the striped bass limit in January rom three to five fish daily and in possession and removed the 16-inch minimum length require­ment.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Kimak has teamed with Bob Glass­burn on several occasions [/font]to present [font "Times New Roman"]free fishing clinics to all comers. Liber­ally spiced with exciting color slides of trophy stripers and demonstrations on fishing tackle and electronic equip­ment, Kimak covers shore fishing and Glassburn techniques from a boat. The response to their first clinic in the fall of 1978 was so overwhelming that many would-be students had to be turned away. This led to another clinic shortly thereafter. Kimak says, "We'll continue teaching as long as there are people who want to learn. Lake Mead is the finest striper fishery in the coun­try with more than enough fish for everyone. I'd like everybody to enjoy this sport as much as I do." [/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Charles W. Crunden is an information officer with the Nevada Depart­ment of Wildlife and a Las Vegas TV celebrity.[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 2] [font "comic sans ms"] There are some typo's that I can't staighten out for one reason or another. The preveiw shows everything normal but the final product is a little out of wack. Disregard any ( ­
Happy reading.[/font] [font "Times New Roman"][/font]
[font "Times New Roman"]Take care,[/font]
[font "Times New Roman"][/font][font "Times New Roman"]David[/font]
[signature]