# Big Mama



## Meadowlark (Jul 19, 2008)

We caught the largest striper I've ever seen come out of the Livingston watershed today along with a nice hybrid and other stripers to fill out a limit. The fish was an honest 20 pounds, weighed on my certified scales and was exactly 34 inches long. She had a huge gut which was full of eggs and almost looked like a big redfish that has been feeding heavily. 

The big fish hit a small jig thrown under a weighted cork into the white wash below the dam. 

We lost an even larger one by the boat today....incentive to go back and find it. 

The water is still off color from the recent rains, but fishable. Can't wait to go back and look for the one that got away. 

Friend George got the big one; I lost the bigger one; and Al Devine provided his expertise. I always enjoy fishing with Al not only because he knows that river better than anyone I know, but also because he is a great guy who respects the fishery. 

Great day to be on the water.


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## Titan2232 (Apr 2, 2014)

Congrats. That's a brute


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## Sunbeam (Feb 24, 2009)

Great going Larry. Looks like there will be some nice brood fish come April 6th or so when the TP&W boys show up.
Brings up that long unanswered question...."where did that fish spend the last year? In the lake, the river or the Gulf?"


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## big D. (Apr 10, 2010)

Wow! That is impressive! It is great when awesome anglers are rewarded for their hard work and time on the water! Good job guys!


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## Meadowlark (Jul 19, 2008)

Sunbeam said:


> Great going Larry. Looks like there will be some nice brood fish come April 6th or so when the TP&W boys show up.
> Brings up that long unanswered question...."where did that fish spend the last year? In the lake, the river or the Gulf?"


 That's no lake fish Sunbeam...look at the girth on it. Has it been in the salt? I would not be the least bit surprised.

Yes, according to Al the TP&W boys won't mess with a fish that large. I don't know about that, but she probably had a couple of pounds + of eggs in her...beautiful striper.


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## big D. (Apr 10, 2010)

Wonder why they get so much bigger below the dam? 

Water chemistry?


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## Meadowlark (Jul 19, 2008)

big D. said:


> Wonder why they get so much bigger below the dam?
> 
> Water chemistry?


 Three things:

1) food
2) environment
3) fishing pressure

1)They have a smorgasbord of food washing down to them constantly.

2) The water below the dam is much higher in O2 than the lake water and generally the water temps are a little lower...resulting in fish that can live up to 6 years. But they have never seen one older than that, I'm told, below the dam...and never over 5 years in the lake.

3) It isn't easy to hit the prime spot. Definitely a specialized form of fishing. You don't drive over them with 3d space age electronics in your boat, like one can on the lake, and you can not simply drop a live shad down to them over the side of the boat.


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## lx22f/c (Jun 19, 2009)

Awesome catch Larry, that is a great looking striper. Congrats


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## Whitebassfisher (May 4, 2007)

A sincere congratulations for an awesome fish!


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## shadslinger (Aug 21, 2005)

Congrats George, that is a real hog of a striper.


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## Ken.Huynh (May 30, 2014)

Wow. Congratz. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## CarolinaPartimer (Mar 22, 2013)

That's mighty nice! Congrats!


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## richk* (Jun 15, 2014)

awesome fish and thanks for the nice report


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## danmanfish (Jun 17, 2010)

thats a bigun.. congrats !!!!!


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## Bottom bouncer (Jul 26, 2010)

Wow Larry what a great fish !! Congrats to the lucky angler


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## FISHROADIE (Apr 2, 2010)

Very nice fish and catch.


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## schoalbeast101 (Oct 23, 2014)

Awesome fish!


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## Danny O (Apr 14, 2010)

Fantastic specimen! Congrats to Larry, George & Al!


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## fishinganimal (Mar 30, 2006)

Nice work gents. Will it see the wall?


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## Gofish2day (May 9, 2006)

That is a big striper! Gongrats!


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## TexasTom (Mar 16, 2011)

Great catch! Thanks for sharing the adventure with us! Congratulations!


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## dbullard (Feb 13, 2008)

Great catch wtg.


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## johnmyjohn (Aug 6, 2006)

Great fish. Every once in a while I'll hear someone getting a Striper in Trinity Bay. But most give credit to escapees from HL and P holding pond. Fished the surf for many years and haven't even heard a lie about catching one. Maybe there's someone out there with better hearing than me lol.


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## BigBuck (Mar 2, 2005)

Nice stripers! Only striper I ever caught was in Trinity bay at the H L & P spillway. 
Many moons ago. I fished the LLD for many years in the 70's and 8o's. Long before the cable was up. May need to go back.
Congrats!
BB


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## texcajun (Feb 22, 2009)

Great fish, Congrats!


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## Meadowlark (Jul 19, 2008)

johnmyjohn said:


> Great fish. Every once in a while I'll hear someone getting a Striper in Trinity Bay. But most give credit to escapees from HL and P holding pond. Fished the surf for many years and haven't even heard a lie about catching one. Maybe there's someone out there with better hearing than me lol.


 The very first striper I ever caught was in Trinity Bay back in the 70's. I used to frequently run out of Clear Lake to fish Trinity Bay and have seen bluefish, Spanish mac's, tarpon, in addition to stripers up there at certain times....but those days are well behind me.

For those interested in the salt water history of stripers in Texas, Dr. Mark Fisher has an excellent article summarizing that past.

https://tpwd.texas.gov/fishboat/fish/didyouknow/gulfstripedbass.phtml

If you dig a little deeper, you can find legitimate reports of commercial fishing for stripers all the way south to Corpus as late as the 1950's.

We definitely had them in salt waters off Texas at one time, but those days appear to be gone forever....sadly so.


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## johnmyjohn (Aug 6, 2006)

Good read meadowlark. Tarpon are still around but I did not know striipers were thick enough for commercial harvest. It would be surprise of a lifetime surf fishing and dragging in a 40 pounder on a Galveston beach like they do on the east coast.


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## Meadowlark (Jul 19, 2008)

JJ, 

Some biologists I have talked to believe that the Gulf Coast striper was a unique subspecies and now only survives in the Apalachicola River . Some (at least one I know) believes there is a chance that the genetics from that subspecies may still survive in the river stripers below the dam...and that belief/possibility drives a lot of the TP&W decision making. 

Efforts to re-introduce stripers in the Gulf using the Santee Cooper strain striper failed....and with all the dams and such now there's probably no chance of them ever re-establishing. 

You're probably familiar that many believe the Tarpon demise on our Coast is pretty much attributable to that same cause...but we do get considerable migrating Tarpon every summer and a few year "arounders" I know of in Freeport locations. 

You are far more likely to experience a surprise Tarpon in the surf than you will ever with stripers. 

I've always wanted to try those east coast surf stripers with a fly rod, but my biggest problem has always been the east coast...just not my kind of place to visit....but maybe some day.


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## johnmyjohn (Aug 6, 2006)

Judging by what Ive observed in my lifetime if it's time for change in nature the only thing man can do is prop it up. If we undo what we've done like get the Colorado and the Rio Grande river to start flowing to their end destinations we might have a chance. But what are the odds of that happening. Species are in a fight to see who is going to outlast who and we as people are backing the ones we prefer more, like the red fish as an example. I believe the state is still trying to get spoon bills back in the rivers by stocking. I don't believe it's working or stocking would not be nessesary anymore. The only things that seem to hang on is hardheads and mosquitos. So for now we can enjoy a nice stocked fish below the dam like this fellow 2cooler landed,,,, if we're lucky that is.


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## pYr8 (Apr 17, 2012)

Great catch, ML! Thanks for the report!
Tailrace stripers can be some awesome fish. I had a few below Elephant Butte dam that flat out scared me, lol...


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