raystown lake

Hello all,

We are planning our second trip to raystown lake this month, and I am looking for any advice or assistance anyone may be able to give us as far as effective tactics, lures and locations on the lake.

Last year, we were out in mid july, and due to mechanical issues w/ the boat, we didnt' make it north of seven points marina. We were throwing a combination of topwater buzz frogs, cranks at varied depths usually in a bleeding shiner, firetiger and various shad patterns, and of course tons of nightcrawlers anywhere from 1ft down on a bobber to the bottom on a slip bobber. We did manage to secure a handfull of alewife and gizzard shad that produced some prodigal snapping turtles but nothing else. Also a few spinners with and without trailers. End of the story is we ended up with a single 1lb catfish for the entire week hehe. Needless to say not a productive week.

We are definately looking to have a bit more success this year. We have varied out our plastics assortment to include a mix of just about everything, craws, lizards, senkos, leeches, eels, various styles of worms and tubes etc.

We have heard mixed reports about fishing right off the dam, as well as the coves west of the dam. True? false?  I've talked to a few friends in the state college area, one of whom has hit raystown with some regularity and has nailed numerous fish relatively close to where we spent our longest period last year without a single hit.

I am pretty confident in our abilities to pull in fish, we've pertty much always pulled fish where ever we went, and personally I tend to bang stripers out of raritan bay with quite a bit of regularity.

Obviously ther are differences between saltwater and landlocked stripers, so any advice or help would be appreciated.

Thanks alot!