lake arthur surprise

I thought that I hit the lottery a few years back too...  If you aren't planning to keep, you probably shouldn't be fishing for them in mid summer.  Crappy posted this (or similar study) a while back.
 
"In the fall and spring when water temperatures were cool, mortality of caught and released hybrids was very low (average 3.6%). However in summer, when water temperatures exceeded 79^oF, the mortality rate increased to nearly 40%. Evidence was very strong in favor of water temperature being the only critical variable to explain the difference in mortality rates."
 
http://www.bigindianabass...e-mortality-study.html

Catch two, throw in cooler. Or, kill fish for sport and be fine with it.

Turtles gotta eat too!

Always find it a bit amusing that no ever gets in an uproar over killing every 15" Walleye or 9" Crappie and also perch and bluegills. But if its a fish outside of these four, there will be hell to pay
 
 

I've had plenty of days on Arthur where I caught 20+ wipers.  During the day, on bait.  Which isn't shocking, since I really only use bait.  But those wipers were all 8-10" and super annoying, and I moved to avoid them once they started eating.  Even worse I've had angry packs of those little turds swarm the back of the boat while my buddy in the front pulls in crappie and perch.  
 
I also caught my largest wiper on bait on a warm summer day in shallow water under a full_hot_sun.  Pretty sure his heart burst just about the time we netted him, which was fine with me since he was headed for an icy death_bath anyway.  
 
Multiple catfish days?  Easy peasy.  Multiple keeper sized wiper days?  That's one for the books.  Can't say I've kept a two man limit yet on all my time at Arthur.  Of anything actually, since catfish are part of the 50 panfish bag.  I've decided that a half dozen decent channels are a limit, based on how much I want to fillet.  
 
I don't care if people kill em if they're going to grill em, and I'm confident Pork doesn't either.  But summer CnR fishing for wipers isn't CnR, and should be avoided when possible.  I could see a situation where you kept hooking up even when you didn't want to though... stuff happens.  

Keep what you want,but please use it or give to someone that will. I target  4 species to eat,many for sport. I'll keep eyes,jumbo perch,bull gills and ice or early ice out crappie. Everything else swims again. If something is going to die,that's another story. Bass,wipers,musky, cats are all released. I will keep large northern through the ice.  I've got a years worth of jumbo perch to eat. They should be gone by ice season. Then my season starts again.lol

As long as you get all of the red meat off of the fillet stripers are excellent.  Chunk them up and fry with beer batter.  They don't seem to freeze all that well and you have to fillet them right away.  If they sit too long or if you leave red meat on the fillet they taste like garbage.  I would rather eat a fresh fried striper than a frozen walleye.

Excellent advice Sam and for those not owning a vacuum seal, add enough water in your freezer container to cover the fillet(s).

If using freezer bags, squeeze until water comes out before zipping closed.

BeenThereDoneThat.
Excellent advice Sam and for those not owning a vacuum seal, add enough water in your freezer container to cover the fillet(s).

If using freezer bags, squeeze until water comes out before zipping closed.

That works well too
I put Walleye fillets in freezer bags filled with water and add a squirt of lemon juice. When they thaw out at a later date your in business.
 
If your storing fish over six months you need to have more fish fry's or make more friends !  
 
I release all Stripers and I've tossed back plenty of hogs up to 14lbs.......just too good of fighters to kill....... let someone else have fun !

Wiper IS rockfish, give or take.  Think of it as striper_lite.  Properly prepped it is excellent.  Only edge I'd give to real striper would be the larger flake of the flesh.  And lets be honest... if flake size is your jam you are eating cod anyway.  It was a real shame to cut that 27" striper loose the wife caught in Delaware.  I could picture the tasty sammiches swimming away.  :(  
 
Should be mentioned that white bass is NOT ANYTHING LIKE STRIPER!  Not exactly sure why.  But white bass has to be some of the worst fillets I've ever caught and prepped.  I've had them from a couple different lakes (Erie, pymie, Shenango) and have always been disappointed.  

There are purebred stripers (rockfish) in many land locked lakes.  Raystown and Wallenwaupak (sp) have them in PA.  A bunch of lakes down south and west of us have them too.  They don't do purebreds on this side of the state, mostly for better returns on the hybrids and can tolerate the temps of our, not as deep lakes.  At least, that is what I have read.  They also claim some sort of messing with the natural reproduction and not found in the Gulf of Mexico, but there are plenty of rivers and lakes down stream of us, that have them.  "Land Between the Lakes", has some hogs, that have much easier access to the Mississippi River.  They also use them on our side of the state as a means for controlling the shad populations, as the hybrids are fast growing and eating machines.  Which, I would imagine is why Arthur and Shenango, are not walleye destination type lakes.  The walleye fry stocked are likely like an appetizer for the wipers and cats, that seem to love alewives. 
Check out the hybrid striped bass as a food source as well.  It is one of the largest farmed fish in the US.  I have read that a large portion of "rockfish" served on menus, are hybrids, since commercial fishing of purebreds is very controlled and limited supply.  Just like anything, there are some great chefs out there, that can turn just about anything into a delicious meal.
I had a nice purebred up to my knees in the surf this weekend next to the Cape May inlet North jetty.  Probably in the 30" range.  Landed the old skunko though.  Only got to fish one morning for about 3 hours and only took a vest size tackle box with me.  More just testing the action of some lures that I made for NC.    

No catch this past weekend for me.  Landed the old skunko (got skunked)...  It was fun though.  Had one up to my side.  My lures looked like they will work if a school of bay anchovies or spearing are around, and something feeding on them.  I can't say that I was expecting much from reports that I had read.  Maybe get lucky with a flounder.  Wish that I had more gear.  Something came out of the rocks at the jetty with a blue crab in its mouth.  I'm guessing a tautog or sheepshead.  Was fun doing some body boarding with the kids though.
 
I'm going off of memory of why they claim no purebreds on the western half of PA.  It is on the interweb somewhere.  Where I had read about it in the past.  Maybe it is due to possible messing with that Gulf of Mexico strain?  Regardless, it doesn't sound like Tennessee or Kentucky are very worried, and half of the distance from us to the Gulf.  Technically, I am sure it is not half...  PA doesn't think we should have the purebred on this side for some reason.  I'm betting cost on return is the top factor, which I can't blame them.  It would be nice.  The wiper fisheries they have at Shenango, Arthur and the rivers is pretty fun though.  Getting into some 50lb hogs would be fun though.

I'm sure the size of both Shenango and Arthur plays a factor too.  How many 30lb-50lb fish could each of those lakes really hold?  I'd bet most would end up stunting at a lower size.  At that point, why not just go with the hybrids?  The fish in both lakes are fun sizes.
 
I agree with Cpt.  They are too fun to keep everyone that I catch.  Since I am unable to catch walleye like he can, I am forced to keep a few...

I use to catch Walleye Pork !....lol     This was a tough year !
 
I believe years back they did put some pure strain Stripers in Shenango. I remember a guy caught one way up river in Jamestown in the low 20 lb. range in the 70's I believe. I don't know how many were stocked but a few did make it. Don't think there was much effort or study done.
 
The local stocked hybrids took off and continue to thrive to excellent growth sizes. No doubt a great decision of choice for Shenango. With the deeper water and the plentiful Shad bait the Hybrid Stripers have faired extremely well over the years. I'd like to see the stocking numbers go up higher on these into the future. I think Shenango has the potential to be the best Hybrid Striper lake in all of Pa. or maybe the North East area. Hybrid Stripers have been caught steady in the 15-18 lb. range !
 
It's a shame the Fish Commission doesn't recognize them in their own category instead of all Inland Lake Stripers.....they are not the same fish !  I don't understand that ! 
Shenango would have record fish every year in that hybrid species. Hard to compete with Raystown's 50 lb. Inland Stripers . Makes no sense ....it would be the same as putting all Catfish under one species.         

A good number of the stripers stocked in Raystown, after the initial decade or so, were stocked by the Raystown Striper Club. The PFBC still stocked fish, but the club really supplemented them.