Chesapeake Light Tackle readers are sure to recognize the striper techniques I recommend as little more than modified methods for catching freshwater bass.  I have little use for the heavy trolling gear or live bait most Chesapeake Bay fishermen feel they need to be successful. A bass is a bass and it’s a lot easier to land a 40 pound striper in the unobstructed open water of the Bay than it is to land a 5 pound smallmouth in heavy cover.  Since I’ve concentrated so intently on striper fishing over the past four years, I’ve felt like I might be getting a little behind the freshwater bass fishing curve.  Let’s just say my street cred has been slipping with the freshwater bass crowd.  So, when my wife offered me a week-long opportunity to fish anywhere I wanted as a birthday gift, my choice of venues came easy.  Instead of marlin fishing in the mid-Atlantic, trout casting in the northwest, or redfish chasing in Florida, I chose large and smallmouth bass fishing near my old haunts in the Tennessee Valley.  Read More!