Search And Destroy Striper Fishing At The California Aqueduct

I remember as a kid I loved playing battleship.  When playing battleship, you have to sink your opponent’s ships before they sink yours.  All the ships are placed on a labeled grid.  The problem is, you don’t know where their ships are.   So you guess.

E5…That’s a miss.  F7…That’s a miss. A10…Hit! Then you’d continue on with the numbers around that area.  Search and destroy.  That’s exactly what I was doing on a recent fishing trip.

We started off in an area that seemed to be very productive.  There were baitfish, it had structure and it had produced for us in the past.  We fished that location until the sun began to pop out from over the horizon.  No one was able to hook into a fish there.

 

Desperately trying to avoid going home empty handed, we left and targeted a new location.  At this point it was already mid-morning and most of the surface activity had ceased.  So typical me, I threw out my planner board while my two buddies started casting and walking down the concrete river.  We were searching for fish.

So I’m walking down the paved road while my planar board was pulling my lure about 15-20 from the water’s edge.  As I’m walking, I start looking off in the distant for signs of fish activity.  BAMM!!!  I feel my line tighten, my rod starts bending and shaking violently.  I had a fish on.

I felt the weight of the fish and the sudden burst of speed.  It kept diving and diving.  Relentless.

I slowly reeled in the fish.  When it was about 20 feet from the waters edge, I could see a swarm of stripers darting out trying to swipe at the lure, currently lodged into the side of my striper. 

As soon as you see them, they disappear into the depths.  Wow!  These were chasers!  There was a whole school.

 

So I yell to my buddies who were probably 100 yards away to hurry up, “I found em!”  As soon as I release the striper I had caught, I clipped off my planar board and I cast my lure sideways and I was bombarded with hit after hit.  No takers but they were all interested.  Second cast…Bamm! Fish on.

 

We targeted this area for another 15-20 minutes before moving on.  The stripers seem to move on after a surge of interest.  You just have to continue searching for them after the bite stops.

We continued this search and destroy tactic for the rest of the morning.  Trolling with the planar board allowed me to search through the area rather quickly.

Here’s a clip of how we were able to hook into them that day.

When fishing for stripers at the California Aqueduct, it’s like playing a game.  Like Battleship, we searched for the objective and when we found it, we targeted that area. Instead of sinking ships, we were catching fish. Search and destroy.

If you wanna give this tactic a try,  here’s a link to the planar board I used in the video.  You can get it  HERE.  I do earn a small commission at no cost to you, if you choose to purchase through this link.  All proceeds help keep this website up, so thanks in advance.

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