By Jeff Samsel

Bruce Holcombe was having fun watching my attempts to scribble down notes. Every time I pulled out my pad of paper and pen and began to write something down, one of the reels' drags would start screaming for my attention. Eventually I got enough notes for my story, but between sentences I ended up landing 15 striped bass and missing nearly as many - all in about four hours.

Of course, Holcombe, who has been guiding on north Alabama's Lewis Smith Lake for 14 years, kept quite busy that day as well. He was doing all the real work, keeping us over the fish, baiting several lines with live gizzard shad, putting the lines in place and netting fish for me.

Smith Lake supports what most anglers consider the state's premier landlocked striped bass fishery. Over the two decades that striped bass have been in this mountain lake, striper fishing has grown enormously popular, with many anglers traveling to the reservoir from other parts of the state with hopes of hooking into a really big fish.

A couple hours' drive east of Smith Lake, another vast Alabama impoundment also supports an intriguing saltwater stripe fishery. Unlike Smith, however, Weiss Lake has never earned a wide-ranging reputation as striper water. A reservoir on the Coosa River, Weiss is far better known for its world-class crappie fishing than for stripers or any other sportfish.

Although Smith and Weiss lakes are both noteworthy striper lakes, and they are located in the same general part of the state, the two reservoirs couldn't be more different. In addition to being completely different in character, these two lakes support striper fisheries that are quite dissimilar.

Bruce Holcombe displays a striped bass from Lewis Smith Lake. He thinks the catch rate is as good as it has been in the 14 years he has guided there. Photo by Jeff Samsel

The lake-record fish, which was caught by Nick Bailey on a mid-April guide trip with Holcombe two years ago, weighed 46 pounds.

"We only caught four fish that day," Holcombe recalled. "The other three weighed 22 pounds, 26 pounds and 28 pounds and were all caught on topwater. The big one took a big gizzard shad."

Holcombe believes his catch rates have gone up over the past few years, and he has not noticed any correlating declines in the overall quality of the fish. Smith Lake's reputation clearly is built on the number of trophy striped bass it kicks out. During the spring, Holcombe expects to see at least one 20-pound-plus fish in the boat on roughly every other trip, and any rod that goes down on the impoundment is apt to yield a 30-pound-plus saltwater stripe.

Beyond being the best time of the year for catching giant stripers, mid-April to mid-May brings the best topwater bite of the year to Smith Lake, with the fish blowing up on huge topwater jerkbaits "V-waked" slowly across the surface, or on plugs that "walk the dog." Holcombe often has clients fish topwater plugs all day this time of year.

Stripers typically don't school during May, but they do look up for their food. Therefore, blind-casting across areas where Holcombe expects stripers to be is the order of the day, and the big fish seem to come from nowhere.

Holcombe spends most late-spring days working vast flats and tapering points, usually putting all baits in less then 10 feet of water. He invests the bulk of this time in the Ryans Creek arm of the lake because numerous broad flats tend to hold heavyweight stripers in April and May.

In addition to fishing topwater lures, Holcombe pulls one or two big live gizzard shad behind the boat most of the time this month. Depending on the bottom depth and where the stripers have been holding, he might pull the live baits on free lines, allowing them to go where they will, or he may add a balloon to one or more lines to control the depth at which the baits swim.

A combination of gizzard and threadfin shad keeps the striped bass well fed on Smith Lake. Even when the stripers are following big schools of threadfins, though, gizzard shad are Holcombe's preferred live-bait offerings. Beyond the fact that gizzard shad are bigger bites, Holcombe has found that gizzard shad are easier to keep alive, both in the bait tank and on a hook.

During spring, Holcombe fishes primarily with large shad - often 10 or more inches long. Because gizzard shad are difficult to catch from Smith Lake and traveling to other lakes to catch them is impractical, Holcombe buys the shad he uses for bait.

The guide spools fairly heavy conventional baitcasting outfits with 15-pound-test line. During spring, he adds no hardware to his line beyond a 4/0 Octopus-style hook. If he wants to suspend the bait at a specific depth, he also adds a balloon, which he inflates to the size of a baseball and ties around the line when he ties off the balloon.

He puts out a lot of line so the boat doesn't spook the fish and then lets the baits go where they will. Holcombe free-spools the reels, but with clickers engaged. When reels start screaming, he wants anglers to get the rods as quickly as possible and set the hook like they are trying to yank the fish right out of the water.

"With all that line out, you have to set the hook hard, with a big swing," he stressed.

Smith Lake impounds 20,120 acres in the hills of Walker, Winston and Cullman counties, with its acreage spread among several long lake and river arms. Deep water abounds throughout the reservoir, with depths of 200-plus feet not uncommon. The water is clear compared to most Alabama lakes, but not quite as clear as it was only a few years ago. Fertility has increased with more development around the lake and in other parts of its watershed.

Abundant deep water is a boon to the stripers, which find thermal refuge well below the surface during the hottest days of summer. Large stripers, especially, require fairly cool water, and a lack of decent summer habitat is a major limiting factor for big-fish production on a lot of Southern lakes.

Smith Lake gets stocked with only Gulf-strain saltwater stripes, which grow faster than Atlantic-strain fish. Smith was first stocked in the early 1980s and was the test lake for the Gulf strain. Today, Alabama uses only the Gulf fish, largely because they are more tolerant of warmer waters than are Atlantic-strain fish.

Smith Lake is stocked with 40,000 to 65,000 stripers per year. The target stocking rate is one fish per acre. However, the specific number is determined annually based on the density and makeup of the lake's threadfin and gizzard shad populations.

For the first five or six years that the stripers were in Smith Lake, no one targeted the fish. By the time anglers began catching them - usually while targeting black bass - some of the lake's saltwater stripes already weighed more than 10 pounds.

Word then began spreading about the exciting new action, and the popularity of Smith Lake's striper fishery grew with that first crop of fish. In fact, it didn't take long for Smith Lake's reputation as a trophy striper destination to spread well beyond the Alabama border.

While Alabama's state-record striped bass, which weighed 55 pounds, came from the Tallapoosa River, most anglers consider Smith the premier destination in the Cotton State for trophy stripers. Veteran anglers like Holcombe believe there are state-record-caliber stripers in the lake and that it is only a matter of time before someone manages to hook and land one.

For guided fishing on Smith Lake, call Bruce Holcombe at (256) 724-2081 or check out his Web site, at www.alabamaoutdoors.net/smithlake.html.

For more information on marinas, area lodging and other angling services, call the Cullman Chamber of Commerce at (800) 313-5114 or log onto www.cullmanchamber.org.