How often do you cast to standing water without a bite? Then you are frustrated that there should of fish in there. Yep, the fish were stocked years ago. So what’s wrong? Nothing about your lure, typicaly. It’s typically something with your timeline. Most anglers wants a wiper as soon as it gets big enough for a trophy. They are then disappointed because the fish haven’t grow up enough yet.
That understanding of growth curve will change how you fish. It makes it more of a waiting game than a guessing game. Hybrid striped bass (or wipers) grows faster because of hybrid vigor. The critical time period for the rapid growth is the first few years of life. You can observe how quickly they grow during those initial years as seen in infographic above. Early growth is explosive but then it plateaus out.
Why Wipers Grow and How to Catch Them
Fish don’t waste any energy during their first couple-three years trying to get bigger; they only has one thing on their mind (reproduction). Without reproductive efforts, fish gain more length and muscle, leading to a quick increase in size that can double or triple. That’s where folks gets confused. Because they grew rapid initially, they think it will continue indefinitely. It doesn’t.
About five years in, the wiper’s length gains slows down dramatically. It will still add weight, maybe gaining an inch a year from that point on. That’s important when fishing for them because you seek out a nice size-to-weight ratio. A four or five-year old wiper is typicaly your sweet spot. It is not too big and awkward, and it is not so small that you have to baby the fish with ultra-heavy line.
Genetics is only part of the equation. Environment matter just as much. For instance, wipers likes warm water with abundant forage. Metabolism is driven by water temp. The warmer the water the higher the metabolism (between 75-82 degrees), so they grows more. They won’t feed if the water is too cool. Too warm? The fish will shut down and get deep.
Fall and spring are ideal seasons; wipers will feed heavly in the shallows. Summer? You gotta locate that sweet spot where the water temp aligns. The second factor is forage density. Schooling fish, such as wipers, are ambush predators and feed on baitfish like gizzard shad. In order for the wipers to do well they needs a dense amount of baitfish in lake. No matter what the genetic makeup of the wipers, if there isn’t enough shad in the lake, they will either starve or grow very slow.
The amount of food available dictates how fast the wipers grows per inch, and that forage base is determined by productivity of the lake. The more fertile the lake, the more life it supports and the faster that life grow. Most state agencies restock wipers because they don’t reproduce naturaly in most stocked fisheries. They stock four- to six-inch long fingerling fish. Restocking is needed to sustain their population.
There is no need to expect them to reproduce naturally to maintain the population, so treat them with care. The undersize fish you release today will become trophies for somebody else tomorrow. It’s an exercise in patience, a cycle of stocking, growing, catching, and restocking. To target wipers well, match the hatch. Mimic the shad size on your particular lake.
Use a smaller presentation in early spring and bigger bait in late fall as they prepares for winter. Look out for any indications of feeding frenzy like diving birds or surface boils. If you see them, throw right into the action. There’s no getting around the fact that fishing wipers is a lesson in timing. They grow on their own schedule and you either learn to play along or be frustrated.
Knowing where the fish are in their life cycle sets you up for success instead of frustration, whether you’re looking for your first legal size fish or a double digit trophy. Knowing what to expect in the water will help you get there. The fish are there. They are growing. And you just have to be there when the time is right with the right presentation.