The key to the striper's existence in Florida has always been water temperature. Above all other considerations they need cool water. In fact, they will forgo food to stay cool. During the hot summer months stripers seek out springs and seeps that may be only a few degrees colder than surrounding waters.

The best times to striper fish in the lower Apalachicola are the cooler months, starting in late September and continuing through January. The fish are more active in their feeding during this time, often replacing the significant weight lost during the summer months.

Several years ago fisheries biologists captured and attached a radio transmitter to a striper in Lake Seminole that weighed approximately 66 pounds. Upon recapture six months later during the summer the fish weighed only 45 pounds. Striped bass are classified as anadromous. They are spawned in fresh water and then migrate to salt water to mature. Then they migrate back to fresh water to spawn.

This is the way they behave throughout most of their range. But this behavior changes below South Carolina where the seawater warms faster than fresh water and acts as a thermal barrier to their migration. In Georgia, Florida, and Alabama they spend most of their lives in fresh water, making short migrations to the bays in the fall after they leave their thermal refuges.

So for the majority of the year, our Florida stripers are in the rivers--where they are just a short swim from the springs and seeps that provide comfort, just a cast away from fly fishermen.

The lower Apalachicola River is a vast system, largely unexplored in terms of striper fishing. The upper part of the river below the Jim Woodruff Dam and in Lake Seminole has more intense concentrations of stripers and thus gets most of the angling attention. The tailrace below the dam is only suitable for jig and livebait fishing, especially since most of the best fishing is from the catwalk. This leaves little or no room for fly casting. Most of the fishermen in the lower section target largemouth bass, panfish or saltwater species. The very few who go after stripers use bucktailed jigs or live bait.

Fly fishermen have endless possibilities in this area for both stripers and their hybrid cousins, the sunshine bass. An extensive network of tributaries branches out from the main river and flows through miles of coastal hammocks and saltmarsh into the bay. These creeks divide and subdivide and interconnect, forming a web of waterways that is home to striper food such as finger mullet, shrimp, mud crabs, threadfin shad, bay anchovies, and one of their favorites, mojarra. In September, when the white shrimp clog the bay, stripers and sunshine bass crowd the mouths of the St. Marks and East Rivers. Small Clousers and other types of streamers fished at the junction of creeks or at the creekmouths can produce stripers, sunshine and largemouth bass, redfish, speckled trout and flounder.

On the upper St. Marks, another Apalachicola Northern trestle also attracts stripers. In fact, this same railroad also crosses the upper East River and several other creeks. Stripers attracted to deep water are also drawn to large structures such as bridges.

Back in the main part of the river, at the Pinhook, where the Jackson River joins the Apalachicola, the deep water often harbors heavyweight stripers. Many anglers fishing jigs have hooked fish they couldn't hold.

Stripers are also caught in the western portion of Lake Wimico where it joins the Intracoastal Waterway. The Gulf County canal is another productive spot, both where it joins the Intracoastal and where it empties into St. Joe Bay. Fly tackle for stripers is straightforward. Fly rods that are suitable for bass, redfish, and snook work just fine. Medium-weight lines from 7- to 9-weight are perfect.