DATE: Thursday, November 20, 1997           TAG: 9711200605

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C8   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BOB HUTCHINSON

                                            LENGTH:   33 lines

FISHING FORECAST A WEEKLY GUIDE TO THE REGION'S HOT SPOTS

If you're the average striper fisherman, your goal isn't to catch a lot of fish, since you can only keep two no matter how many you land.

Rather, your goal is to catch one so large that in bragging about it later there will be no need to lie. It'll be big enough to stand on its own merits.

Well, hold onto your hats, striper fans. The fun is about to begin.

Over the years, the season's heaviest Virginia stripers have appeared along the Chesapeake Bridge-Tunnel on or just before Thanksgiving.

This is also about when big stripers begin hitting trolled baits in open waters of the Chesapeake off Deltaville and other Western Shore and Eastern Shore ports.

Of course, fishing comes with no guarantee. But the arrival of big stripers, 40 inches and up, in these areas around Thanksgiving is about as close as you can come.

How long the fish will remain active is uncertain. Their stay will be dictated by weather conditions.

Most anglers agree that stripers become pretty inactive when the water temperature drops to about 43 or 44 degrees. A few claim to have boated fish when the water temperature is as low as 32.

Regardless, that's a long way off, unless we get some extreme weather during the next couple of weeks.

The guess here is that stripers, big stripers, will remain active in the Chesapeake well into December, perhaps even into the new year.

And that would delight anglers looking for that one big fish.

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