Striped Bass

How to recognise it

• Strong, dark, unbroken stripes, several of them reaching the tail.
• A slender body with a flat back: the body is less than 1/3 as deep as it is long.
• Two distinct tooth patches near the middle of the back of the tongue.

Habitat: where it lives

• A saltwater fish by origin, stocked into many Texas rivers and reservoirs, where it does well without salt water.
• Needs cool, well-oxygenated water and can't tolerate poor water quality. From fall through spring it spreads through the reservoir; in summer it gathers in cool, deep water near the thermocline.

Habits: behavior, spawning and growth

• Lives in open water in schools that keep moving.
• Runs up flowing tributaries to spawn in spring. Its spawning needs are specific, so few reservoirs have self-sustaining populations; most are kept up by stocking.
• Grows fast, often 24 in by its fourth year, and is believed to live up to 30 years.

Where and when

• Schools in open water and avoids the shoreline.
• On Lake Texoma the best months are May–June and October–December.
• Topwater action is best in the first two hours of daylight; the fish go deeper as the sun rises. Diving, squawking gulls mean a school is feeding.
• In winter they hold near underwater structure.

Bait and lures

Why these baits work

• Gizzard and threadfin shad are its main prey, and it's big enough to eat gizzard shad too large for most other fish. That's why live shad and big shad-colored slabs, swimbaits and pencil poppers are the standard baits.

Rod and reel setups

Grouped by lure fishing (artificial baits) and bait fishing (live or natural bait).

Tips

• Drop a slab to the bottom, then reel it up as fast as you can.
• With circle hooks, don't jerk. Keep reeling and let the fish load the rod.

On the table: cleaning and cooking

• Prized for its flavorful flesh (Missouri Dept. of Conservation).

Sources

• Oklahoma Dept. of Wildlife Conservation: Striped bass field guide
• Oklahoma Dept. of Wildlife Conservation: Striped & hybrid bass angler guide
• Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine: Texoma stripers (2014)
• Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine: Texoma (2020)
• TPWD: Lake Tawakoni fishing guide
• Buckley's Striper Guide: Live bait on Lake Texoma (fishing guide site)
• TPWD Outdoor Annual: Bass identification
• Oklahoma Dept. of Wildlife Conservation: Fish identification
• Missouri Dept. of Conservation field guide: Striped Bass