Pro Tips Archive
- Casting (3)
- Fly Tying (5)
- Freshwater Fishing (15)
- General Tips (7)
- Saltwater Fishing (6)
- General Author (20)
- Dr. Way Yin (1)
- Rene' Harrop (9)
- Rich Culver (1)
- Mark Lance (1)
- Capt. Joe LeClair (1)
- Cale Van Velkinburgh (1)
- Chris Beech (1)
- Rick Kustich (1)
- 2009 (6)
- February (2)
- January (1)
- April (1)
- July (1)
- November (1)
- 2008 (28)
- September (1)
- October (23)
- November (2)
- December (2)
- 2010 (2)
- May (1)
- July (1)
Pro Tips
October 2, 2008
It's All In The Retrieve with Capt. Mike Costello
IT'S ALL IN THE RETRIEVE
The striped bass is a predator, an eating machine that maims and then devours its prey. Whether fishing Clousers or whistlers for these trophy game fish I ask one thing of my clients: make sure you pause the fly. All my flies are weighted in the front so when we pause them they dive straight down.
When stripers come into a school of bait fish they often stun their prey using their tail or thick bodies. They often circle back around to devour all the crippled baitfish they can find. I always like to vary my stripping retrieves from one to five pulls with pauses from one to several seconds.
Typically the colder the water the longer I pause in between strips. I always like to start my initial retrieve with three or four good pulls on the line. Even in murky water stripers will pick up on this water movement and come to investigate.
Fish Hard, Mike Costello
The striped bass is a predator, an eating machine that maims and then devours its prey. Whether fishing Clousers or whistlers for these trophy game fish I ask one thing of my clients: make sure you pause the fly. All my flies are weighted in the front so when we pause them they dive straight down.
When stripers come into a school of bait fish they often stun their prey using their tail or thick bodies. They often circle back around to devour all the crippled baitfish they can find. I always like to vary my stripping retrieves from one to five pulls with pauses from one to several seconds.
Typically the colder the water the longer I pause in between strips. I always like to start my initial retrieve with three or four good pulls on the line. Even in murky water stripers will pick up on this water movement and come to investigate.
Fish Hard, Mike Costello
