Chasing alewives
At Lake Arthur, it’s not too late to catch hybrid striped bass
Under a hot full moon during Fourth of July weekend, Walter Garner waded knee-deep onto an asphalt road that has been submerged since 3,000 acres of Butler County were flooded to make Lake Arthur a halfcentury ago. The Butler resident has been fishing the spot since he was young, when his father taught him how to find hybrid striped bass.
“Dad didn’t like fishing pressure. He skipped the late spring runs when the hybrids chase the spawning alewives and there’s a million boats and took me out in summer after all the [anglers] had left,” Mr. Garner said. “We didn’t start until about 10 o’clock at night and it was always better when the moon was full.”
While calling in his catch to Fishing Report — four hybrid striped bass released at night July 5 — he described his late father’s technique.
“Medium weight spinning rod, 10-pound test [line] and floating-sinking lures like Bombers and Rapalas,” he said. “We’d wade onto the roadbed and cast out to the shallows. Jerk a couple of times on the surface, then bring it in erratically like it’s a wounded shad or alewife. It was always exciting at night because you couldn’t see. You just heard a big ‘plop’ and felt your line straighten.”
The state Fish and Boat Commission website noted last week that hybrid striped bass were active at Lake Arthur. The report was posted about a month after the hybrid runs typically pass.
“Hybrid striped bass are coming into the shallows at night in most popular boat accesses,” stated the Fish and Boat report. “Boat anglers will have access to many other shallow areas. Shiny stick baits or live alewife are a traditional favorite and work well.”
Often misidentified as striper or striped bass, hybrid striped bass caught in
Western Pennsylvania are a sterile hatchery-created crossbreed of white bass and striped bass. Unlike its parents, the hybrid tolerates warmer water; it grows larger than white bass and faster than striped bass. The hybrid feeds more aggressively and grows to its adult size of about 20 inches in just three years, making it an ideal game fish, particularly in reservoirs where prey species are prone to overpopulation. The fish are generally cultured out of state, and Fish and Boat stocks them as fingerlings in Lake Arthur, Shenango Lake and the Ohio and Allegheny rivers near Pittsburgh.
Hybrid striped bass have a stocky body and arched back like white bass, and double tooth patches at the rear of the tongue like a striper. The hybrid’s seven or eight lateral stripes are faint and broken. Like white bass and stripers, hybrids are part of the temperate bass or “true bass” family. They have no relationship to largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass, which are collectively grouped as “black bass” and are linked to the panfish family that includes bluegills and crappies.
In May, alewives gather near shore to spawn and hybrids follow. But Jerry O’Donnell of O’Donnell’s Sports Supplies in Portersville says big hybrids can be caught year-round “if you know where to look for them.” He suggested that Mr. Garner’s hybrid hotspot might be a naturally occurring summer feeding location.
“The alewives [have] already spawned. The hybrid rush is over in June, but they still come into the shallows at night for alewives,” he said. “Guys catch them year-round. I’ve caught them from 5 in the morning to 8:30, drifting crawlers over railroad beds.”
Boaters can find schooling hybrids with depth finders or listen for them breaking the surface to catch fleeing alewives, he said. In addition to live bait, Mr. O’Donnell recommends floating-diving crankbaits, particularly Silver Prism Bombers with blue backs.