Striper Fishin’ the Clinch

I took Mike Walker and Adam Doughty up the Clinch this evening. Unlike the night before, I struggled a little bit to get the right size shad minnows – I couldn't seem to find them on the flat between the two bridges in town. There was an abundance of smaller gizzards and threadfins everywhere along the main channel in huge schools. I ended up getting good sized gizzards in Dead Man's cove. The first spot we went to was the spot I saw fish breaking across from the mouth of Clary Foote's place. Since we spent some extra time chasing bait fish, we arrived at the spot at the opportune time - ~7:15 p.m. Just as we arrived big stripers were breaking on the surface – I had Adam and Mike rigged up with poppin' corks (in essence free lining) and circle hooks – The first cast Adam had a fish on and lost it, next cast lost another fish, next cast he caught about a 1&1/2 lb smallmouth, next cast lost one. At this point my heart was beating out of my chest – Mike moves up to the front of the boat and gets hooked up and lands an 8lb striper. I hook up another 8lber – somewhere in all the chaos I think Mike and Adam each lost 3 or 4 more fish and then Adam caught about a 2&1/2 lb smallmouth. As is typical, the stripers seemed to move on so the bite slowed a bit.  We moved down river a mile or two and started seeing stripers break the surface on a flat - a couple of blow ups on a redfin but no fish in the boat.  We moved again a little further down stream to the flat with milfoil in front of Rick Klein's and saw more stripers breaking the surface.  I missed another fish blow up on the redfin and Mike missed on on a minnow - By this time it was good and dark and we all had to get home.  Man oh man, what could have been.  If we'd caught all the fish we had a chance at tonight you would have just finished reading a much different story - that's how it goes some times on the water.