Live Bait Mistakes-Lake Texoma
This blog, Live-Bait Mistakes-Lake Texoma will cover the proper way to fish shad and the top three mistakes most anglers make. We have covered the basics of Live Bait Fishing Lake Texoma, but here is a quick review:
Quality Bait Tank
New Battery
Rock Salt and De-foamer
Control the water temperature (Ice)
Clean the filter
Don’t over-stock with shad
Live Bait Mistakes-Lake Texoma-Fishing Guide Tips
You always know when anglers are artificial lure snobs! Those guys will make jokes about easy live bait fishing, or using live bait is cheating, or anyone can dunk minnows and catch Striper on Lake Texoma! We hear them all the time, but the trick to catching trophy Striper on live bait is to make it look natural! Here is a not so secret tip, Striper get big on Lake Texoma because they are smart! So Live Bait Mistake number one is overpowering your presentation. Your live shad must look and feel natural to the big striper you are trying to catch. So Do Not use to0 big of a circle hook! If your threadfin shad are small, use a size 1 or 1/0 hook! Don’t be afraid to go smaller!
Live Bait Mistakes-Fishing Line
I know most anglers catch huge Striper, but driving to Lake Texoma with 30-pound monofilament line will decrease your success rate! Overpowering your line will cause Striper to drop your bait. The fish feels the line and the tension of line drag. Anglers really do not need line heavier than 15 lb test. If the water clears up during the summer we may use 10 lb test. With a proper rod and the drag set for 10 lb test, most Striper can be led to the net! If you want to go fancy and use Fluorocarbon leader, 15-pound test is perfect. Fluorocarbon line tends to vanish in the water. If Striper get line shy, try Fluorocarbon line!
Too Heavy-Live Bait Mistakes
Try to use the lightest egg sinker as possible to make sure your live bait presentation looks natural. We see a lot of 1oz and 2oz sinkers on Lake Texoma and very few 3/4oz and 0.5oz! Use a bit of common sense if you are fishing in 15 feet of water a 2oz egg sinker will not let your threadfin shad swim naturally! If you are fishing in 30 feet of water and marking fish 10-15 down, try a 0.5oz egg sinker. If you are drifting live bait use a wind sock to slow the boat a bit too! The more natural your live bait looks, the more Striper you will catch on Lake Texoma! The more fish you catch the better your odds are of putting a trophy in the net! It’s a numbers game Striper Anglers!
Big Threadfin and Gizzard Shad will catch Big Striper! If you are hunting trophy fish, make sure you keep those bigger shad you catch and keep them healthy. Most Lake Texoma Fishing Guides would rather have 10 very healthy Big Shad than 100 shad that are ready to float in the tank. Big Shad will tend to go deep and that’s where the trophy striper will be close to the bottom. Don’t use too much weight to get big shad down, you may have to free line them a bit to get them in the Striper Strike Zone! Thanks for reading our blog Live Bait Mistakes-Lake Texoma. We hope this will make you a better live bait angler on Lake Texoma and beyond! These tips cross over to saltwater too! For more information about Striper Fishing Lake Texoma please follow Guide Marty Zamora.
About the Author-Lake Texoma Fishing Guide-Marty Zamora
Marty Zamora owns Captain Marty’s Guide Service and Texoma-Fishing.com. A full-time Lake Texoma Striper Fishing Guide since 1984 and a live-bait fishing Guru! Captain Marty targets White Bass and Striper year-round on Lake Texoma and guides Duck Hunting Trips in the winter.
