I recently decided to throw in the towel at work and retire! When we met with the accountant this year, she had watched some of my fishing videos and said "Why don't you start a fishing business? You are so happy in the videos." So that led to the formation of "StriperMemories ... A Fishing Guide Service" that focuses on Striper and Hybrid fishing on Tims Ford Lake. We feature live bait and trolling (whichever produces the most fish) and offer one six hour trip per day. The "Memories" part of the name comes from the GoPro videos that are produced on most of the trips. I have been using the GoPro for a couple of years and totally enjoy watching the videos from previous trips. Just stands to reason that others would like a video record of their fishing experiences. On a normal trip, we run the GoPro and when the trip is over the customer can decide if they want a video of the experience. Below is a link to a video of a trip this past Wednesday. This is the best day I have ever had on the lake! Normally, 10 fish is a Good day, 15 Fish is and Outstanding day, and 20+ is an Exceptional day!
There is a description of the fishing trip in the narrative that succeeds the video link that explains some of the details of the trip ...
https://youtu.be/4GstoYb9Q_w
"This turned out to be the perfect day of fishing for Stripers and Hybrids on Tims Ford Lake. We started out on the lake before daylight (actually in the middle of the night) catching the live bait that we would start the day off with. The sky was clear, winds were calm, and the moon had not risen. It was a very dark night. We used the GPS function on the depth finder to locate our position and then kept the boat in place with the Minn Kota iPilot system. Once the boat was positioned, a four-foot Green Magnet light was lowered into the water and it immediately began attract the schools of Alewives that we were after. In the meantime, we lowered a pump and hose into the lake and began pumping cool water into the SBT2 from the depth we planned to fish. By the time the bait tank was ready, we had large groups of baitfish under the boat all of the way to the surface. It only took a few casts with the 8' Deep Hole cast net to get all of the bait that we would need. We must have had six dozen baits when we decided to stop.
We then moved to a cove where we suspected to find Stripers and Hybrids together and at first light had six rods in the water each baited with live bait. You know the bait is in good shape when they are so frisky that it is difficult to net them. Such was the case. Once the first fish hit, it turned on. The fish were a mixture of Hybrids and some year-class Stripers mixed in. It is difficult to get GoPro footage of the live bait section of the trip because, unlike trolling, you cannot just turn the cameral on and record, someone had to point the camera. So with two people in the boat (with one tied up with the camera) only one in six of the rods is being managed. Sometimes fish would be on the other five! We did capture some representative video footage of the live bait activity. We were practicing catch-and-release and tried to land the fish and return them to the water as quickly as possible. When we used our last live bait, we had landed and returned 48 fish! You actually get tired of catching them. Most of the fish were in the four to six pound class with probably 25% as large as 8 pounds.
This is the first of June so the place to look for Stripers is points and humps. We started trolling with StriperMemories Tennessee Teaser Urigs (Umbrella rigs) pulling four behind the boat. The boat was being propelled by the 200 Verado at 2.5 MPH. This speed (and the line setup) got the Urigs at the correct depth. We trolled over the first point we had planned to check out and we had hits on two or the rods. Rick landed his but mine got off. We continued trolling back and forth across the point catching fish nearly every pass. We did notice that the fish were getting larger as the morning progressed. We did have a Water Wolf camera on one of the trolling rods and we collected video footage of a 12.5 pound Striper fighting the Urig. Unfortunately, the water is not quite clear enough to get clear underwater footage. We can probably use some of the footage of the battle.
We caught 12 Stripers with the Urigs and six of the 12 weighed between 10 and 14 pounds. Our total fish count for the morning was 60 fish. That is about as good as it gets! It was a great day on the lake!"
I also have a Facebook page for StriperMemories as well as a Youtube channel. You can also find the videos on the "Routerbob" Youtube channel.
Tims Ford Action
