Part 1

Jerry Sanford spends most of his time these days out fishing.

As far as I’m concerned he’s earned every darn minute of it.  Why? Because Jerry, you see, spent 19 hazardous years as a motorcycle riding patrolman with the California State Highway Patrol.

Jerry now lives in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.  Most of his fishing time is spent angling for striped bass in Lake Havasu.  Talk to Jerry and you’ll find he has lots of good things to say about a lure he just started using.

Jerry had heard about this lure before but he’d never actually used it.  “I went down to pay for my boat slip one day,” he says, “and I ran into Joe Miler.  He told me about the lure he’d been using for stripers.  I had been fishing pretty much with just bait.”

Miler wound up asking Sanford if he’d like to go out with him.  He told Jerry he’d show him how the lure he’d been catching those stripers on worked.

“His lure worked all right,” Jerry says.  “He caught about 30 stripers on the darn thing.  He was about the only one on the lake that we saw catching fish.  He had 10 times the action I did with my usual anchovy bait set up.”

The lure Miler used to clobber those Lake Havasu stripers was a Mack’s Lure Super Series Wedding Ring.  Catching trout or kokanee on one or another of the Mack’s Lure Wedding Rings won’t surprise anybody who knows a trout from a teacup.  Clobbering all those stripers with it probably is going to elevate an eyebrow here and there.

Here's a close up of the Mack's Lure Super Series Wedding Ring that Jerry Sanford favors for his Lake Havasu striper fishing.

“I had heard about Wedding Rings,” Jerry says.  “I knew they were a great trout lure but I’d never tried them for stripers.  I’m sure using them now!”

You’ve got to be where the fish are to expect much action.  Jerry says he makes locating stripers the first order of business.  “We use our electronics to find the fish,” he says.  “When we know the depth at which they are located we can determine what size sinker to use and how far behind the boat it is necessary to run our lures.  We usually troll really slow.”

Chartreuse is the bead color he prefers in the Super Series Wedding Ring.  “I’m convinced,” Jerry says, “that those Havasu stripers get more interested when they see something different.  They’re not as used to seeing the Wedding Ring as they are some of the other lures.”

Sanford also shared a tip other anglers will do well to remember.  “Stripers,” he says, “have a tendency to school.  Catch one and there’s an excellent chance you’ll catch others.  Keep your eyes open when you are playing a fish.  You’ll often see larger ones trying to get a better look at what the one you’ve got on has grabbed.”

Every now and then stripers make the water look like it’s boiling when a school of them starts feeding at the surface.  When it happens the resulting action can be fast and furious.  I got into this myself a couple of times while fishing at Lake Mead.

“I remember once last year,” Sanford says, "when we ran into one of the striper boils.  We caught a bunch of them.  Most of the fish ran from 4 to 6-pounds.”

Stripers can be caught on a variety of lures.  The one pictured here smacked a surface plug.  Lake Havasu anglers are discovering that trolling Super Series Wedding Ring spinners is another great way to catch these hard fighting fish.

Sanford says Lake Havasu has an over abundance of stripers.  The generous catch limit of 10 fish per day per person indicates that California fish authorities agree. 

The Elks Club is an active organization in Havasu City.  “We have a fishing club within the Elks Club,” Sanford says.  “The slogan ‘Elks care and Elks share’ certainly applies to our club membership.”

He says their fishing club has striper tournaments from time to time.  It’s not uncommon for those members who are having good action to use a cell phone to contact competing anglers who aren’t on fish to tell them where they’re biting.  “We don’t keep secrets in our group,” Jerry says. 

That’s certainly true where Mack’s Lure’s Wedding Rings are concerned.  Word is already out that the Super Series Wedding Ring is a cracking good striper bait on Lake Havasu.  Chances are it will perform just as well where you do your own striper angling as it does there.

As I’ve noted, Joe Miler introduced Jerry Sanford to the Super Series Rings.  I’ve also talked to Miler myself.  In my next column I’ll tell what he has to say about these dandy fish catchers.  Watch for it starting August 1.

-To Be Continued-