Fly Fishing for Stripers on Lake Lanier with Henry Cowan

[SteveL]

Discussion of the Suzuki rod for freshwater reminded me of this.   Henry Cowan is a fly fishing guide on Lake Lanier in Georgia. 

Here he discusses "Everything You Need To Know to Get Started Fly Fishing for Striper on Lake Lanier"



Some of his videos:
https://vimeo.com/channels/149130

[SteveL]

[jurelometer]

Just watched the first video.   

Mr Cowen speaks the truth in regards to the quality of the fly line being more important than the rod or reel.

The rare short and sweet information packed fishing video.  No blatant product promotion.  No big fish stories.  Just Henry talking.  I am a bit of a Henry Cowen fan even though I am not that into freshwater stripers.

-J

[Dominick]

I don't fish for flies.  I hunt them with a fly swatter.     I also use an electric swatter.    Dominick

[SteveL]

I don't fish for flies.  I hunt them with a fly swatter.     I also use an electric swatter.    Dominick

Try the Bug-a-salt gun:

https://www.bugasalt.com/products/bug-a-salt-3-0-black-fly-edition

[oc1]

Bug-a-salt gun:
https://www.bugasalt.com/products/bug-a-salt-3-0-black-fly-edition

Alan bought those for Christmas one year.

[SteveL]

Bug-a-salt gun:
https://www.bugasalt.com/products/bug-a-salt-3-0-black-fly-edition

Alan bought those for Christmas one year.

They should upsize them so they shoot rock salt.    (We have biting "yellow flies" down here.  Worse than horse flies because they are faster and you can't feel them land until they bite.)

[Tiddlerbasher]

I us an 'Executioner'

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Executioner-Zapping-Racket-Multicoloured-Standard/dp/B01DMDBSIO/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=the+executioner&qid=1582638927&s=outdoors&sr=1-2

[wfjord]

Please accept my apologies for posting back on topic.

Nice videos.  I tie a very similar fly, structurally a modified clouser, for lake & river stripers here and have done exceptionally well with it.  I'm roughly 140 miles east of Lake Lanier, but have never fished there.

[SteveL]

He has other flies but often uses the smaller one about the size of threadfin in winter when that's what the stripers are feeding on, and a larger clouser when they feed on blueback herring.  Many people learning to fly fish for stripers use just those two files and do well.

[Dominick]

I am sorry for interrupting a fly fishing thread with an inane post.  Getting back on subject the man sounds like he knows what he is talking about.  Dominick

[jurelometer]

He has other flies but often uses the smaller one about the size of threadfin in winter when that's what the stripers are feeding on, and a larger clouser when they feed on blueback herring.  Many people learning to fly fish for stripers use just those two files and do well.

Certain species really key in on size at times.  Tuna do it.  My guess is for tuna is that the want to stay tight with the school, and will run down something opportunistically if the odds are good that it is food and they don't have to stray from the pack. 

I also have seen strong size preference with stripers.   My guess is that the motivation is slightly different.  Stripers are not usually packed in huge fast moving schools like tuna.  Stripers live in an environment with more compromised visibility.  They tend to feed in low light periods, especially dawn and dusk when their eyes get reconfigured for better sensitivity but less acuity.  Something that is the same size as everything else they have been eating is more worthy of investigation. 

Hopefully it is possible to identify what they are keying on.  When in doubt, go smaller.  Cutting down a fly when you are not getting bit is a good trick.  I always keep a pair of scissors in my fly bag.  Choosing non-tapered materials makes cutting down the fly less emotional

-J

[wfjord]

I always keep various sizes in a box, all the way down to little glass minnows for use with a 5-wt line on the days there are only schools of little 1-3 pounders around.

[SteveL]

Lanier is kind of odd with bait sizes.  The four main baits that are in the lake are threadfin shad,  blueback herring, spot tail minnows and gizzard shad.  (If you are night fishing, throw in blue gills and bream, and people buy trout for bait too).  There are a few larger threadfin, but the vast majority you see are very much the same size.  Blue backs range from smaller ones to typical 5 to 6 inches  up to an occasional 9 inch (which I know because I caught one fishing a 3" spot tail, and it self nosed-hooked so it went straight back down to 30 feet).  Spot tailed minnows are typically 3 to 5 inches, with a good bit of 6 inch and an occasional 7 inch.   Any spottails over 5 inches I try to save for stripers, and they seem to hit them about as well as they would blue backs.  

I have had schools of 1 lb stripers follow me around eating every 4-5 inch spot tail I dropped in the water before it was out of sight.  Ticked me off at first, but I gave up and switched to ultralight

The bait in your lake may differ, but in lake lanier I would assume to keep the typical threadfin size, the typical clouser, and maybe an intermediate sized clouser.  A larger clouser might not hurt either.

Lake Allatoona is completely different from Lake Lanier due primarily to the lack of blue backs and the severe fluctuation of the water level each year.   There it is mainly threadfin and gizzard shad, and I'm really not sure of the typical sizes.

This thread was initially taking a tangent from the Black Hole fishing rods.  The mention of Lake Allatoona which is known for the float-and-fly technique in the winter, brings us on a tangent right back to the Black hole rods.  They should be excellent rods for the float and fly.

[jurelometer]

But every adult  baitfish has to start out as a fry.  Juveniles are not as strong swimmers as adults and are often aggregated in large groups -so a nice easy meal.  Even if an adult baitfish is 5-7 inches, there are times when the predators are keyed on two inch (or smaller) juveniles, of which there are a bunch of some time after a spawning event.  I believe Cowen dicusses this same phenomena at Lanier  in at least one of the videos that linked in this thread.

I have fished bites that required eye flies (AKA snot flies), which is a represention of those inch long, just after larval stage juveniles that have a transparent wiggly body and big black eyeballs.   Caught some decent sized  fish on  snot flies too.

-J