When it comes to catching big stripers from Kansas' Cheney Reservoir, Harold Gorges knows how to get the job done. Here's how he does it.
If you asked Kansas angler Harold Gorges what his favorite time of the year to fish is, he might well reply, "Whenever I can go!" And he would probably follow up with, "As long as it's between February and December."
Make no mistake about it, Gorges loves to fish, and his favorite place to work his bait in search of hungry stripers is Cheney Reservoir.
Gorges, a 52-year-old resident of Wichita, has been fishing Cheney since 1965. He started out doing it from the shore and found good success.
"I used to bank-fish a lot and use surf rods and wade out and catch stripers using shad," he said. "We decided to use a boat and cover more water.
"I built my first boat out of fiberglass," Gorges remembers. "Until the last few years, I was just a guy who fished by mostly trolling. If you caught five fish, that was a good day."
But Gorges says, he "got tired of buying all those lures." He thought back to his days of surf rods, big equipment and shad and decided to try using the same gear from a boat. He reasoned that everything in the lake likes to eat shad. The long poles also would keep the bait away from the boat and avoid spooking fish.
His rods of preference vary from 8 1/2-foot Eagle Claw rods to ones that reach 13 feet. He positions the rods on various rod holders attached to his boat, depending on how many people are fishing with him. He uses 15-pound test line spooled on Ambassadeur 6500C reels and finds that combination provides plenty of holding power for most fish. He ties two size 1/0 hooks a foot apart on each line, with a 3-ounce terminal weight to keep the bait hugging the bottom.
"The big sinker drags the bottom and gives the bait an erratic action," Gorges advises. "Then I use the trolling motor on automatic to work structure until I find fish. You can control what you are doing a lot better than you can by drifting, and when you find fish you can throw out a marker. You don't use a lot of gas like you would if you were trolling all day. It's kind of a laid-back deal, and you can sit back and let the trolling motor do the work."
And Gorges' methods catch more than stripers.
"When we first started out, we caught lots of catfish," Gorges recalls. "Now we catch just about everything that swims."
Gorges looks back a few years to the glory days of striper fishing at Cheney and points to 1991 as one of his best years.
"We went out and caught 30-some in one day three or four years ago," said Gorges. "We would just catch and release them, and they were running from 3 to 16 pounds."
Gorges guesses his biggest striper taken from Cheney was in the 20-pound range, and he remembers when he could catch lots of fish throughout the summer into the fall.
"I would imagine I caught close to 100,150 that year, and I was using big shad, and we ran out of shad. That was in the fall, and I think the biggest we had that day was 18 pounds."
The decline in striper fishing success over the last couple years has Gorges a bit puzzled. He believes medium-sized fish are virtually absent from the lake.
"I don't know what's happened to all the fish out there, "Gorges admits. "I heard of a couple of big ones being caught, and I know of another guy who caught a big one, and he got it in his net, and his net broke, and he lost it."
When the striper fishing was in its heyday at Cheney, Gorges saw a lot of interest in the pursuit. In addition, anglers also liked the idea of catching lots of white bass, and Gorges admits that the walleye have really come on in the last couple of years. Although he likes to catch stripers, he isn't too particular about what's doing the tugging on the end of his line.
It even adds to the mystery of fishing when live shad are used for bait. In addition to stripers, he has caught buffalo, catfish, walleyes, wipers, white bass and crappie on many trips. His method is usually good for at least five or six species, as evidenced on an outing he invited me on.
I had visited with Gorges on several occasions, and he described his methods and how successful he is with them. I was somewhat skeptical at first about using surf rods. Although I spent several years on the coast of North Carolina using these monstrous rods, I never thought they would have any application in Kansas, so I left mine with a neighbor before I returned there. After one trip with Gorges, I wished I had brought it with me.
I pulled up onto the state park boat ramp well before the sun thought about rising, and I didn't have any trouble spotting Gorges. A veteran of many low-light fishing trips, Gorges had his 19-foot fishing boat outfitted with a Honda generator that lit up his boat like a Christmas tree. He likes the light the generator provides, and he can recharge his trolling motor batteries too.
After a quick launch, we eased out onto the lake as the sun began to rise. The 50-gallon shad tank was already stocked and ready to go. Gorges got all the bait we would need with his 12-foot cat net in just a couple of throws. The round, insulated shad tank was outfitted with an aerator and filter, both necessities for keeping these sensitive baitfish alive.
We cruised to one of Gorges' favorite honeyholes just outside the goose refuge and began our search with four rods bouncing along. The first 20 minutes yielded two 16-inch walleyes (sub-legal fish since Cheney has an 18-inch minimum length limit) and two fat white bass.
"That's a pretty good start. You've made a believer out of me already," I said to Gorges and commented that his bait of choice makes sense.
"You gotta use what's in the lake," said Gorges. "Like I said, everything likes to east shad."
Over the next three hours, we justified that statement in a big way. We boasted 30 to 40 fish, and a total of five species dined on shad a la 1/0 hooks. Although a somewhat slow day by Gorges' standards, the action was fast enough to keep any angler interested.
Gorges' technique has developed a following at Cheney over the years, and he has been more than cordial about sharing his secrets for success.
"Everybody wanted to know why I was catching more fish," he said. "I started teaching people how to rig and throw a cast net to get bait. Most of them pick up on it, but sometimes they get in their own boat and don't do the same things and don't stick with it. Then they get discouraged."
On any given weekend, you can find six to eight boats with anglers who all know each other and fish using this method. Most of them have developed somewhat of a camaraderie rather than a competitive nature. If one boat gets on fish, they often call others on their radios to share their good fortune.
"We all just spread out and see if we can find them," Gorges explained. "In the summertime, we'll fish 'til noon and lie around (they camp at Cheney State Park most weekends) 'til evening and go out again. We can usually catch 100 fish in a weekend doing that."
Gorges has found most fish come from 12 to 18 feet of water throughout his fishing season. He starts getting an itchy rod finger in the spring when the water temperature hits the mid-50s.
"In the spring I use medium to large minnows until mid to late July when the shad come on," Gorges advises. "Then we use those 'til late fall."
He usually winds down when the water temperature drops below 50 degrees.
"My method doesn't work well then," He said. "I've tried and tried and really don't know why for sure. I think the fish become dormant and don't feed that much. But on the other hand, why do you catch them through the ice?"
So the next time you're at Cheney Reservoir and you see someone using equipment that looks way out of place for Kansas waters, don't laugh. And if you want to find out more about this dynamite technique, don't be afraid to ask Gorges. He's always willing to help someone else get started, and he doesn't mind talking fishing.