Photo by Ron Sinfelt

Several years ago, I took a look at a weathered outdoor book titled Striper: The Super Fish.

Written by the late John Clift -- a former WWII reporter for Stars and Stripes, a writer for a New York newspaper and The Sporting News, and the longtime outdoor writer for the Denison Herald -- the short tome chronicled the humble beginnings of the striped bass fishery in Oklahoma.

From those initial striper stockings in Keystone Lake and, later, in Lake Texoma in the 1960s, Clift recounted the birth, infancy, and growth of the striped bass fisheries in Oklahoma and eventually southward into Texas.

Today, more than 40 years later, Oklahoma’s stripers have survived a gauntlet of simmering summer water temperatures, winter shad kills, heavy fishing pressure, desalinization projects, municipal water thirst, floods, drought, and golden alga.

Still the stripers come, eager to bust a slab, a topwater lure, a live shad, or even a fly with sheer brute force that is followed by an intense fight as the fish test the outer limits of an angler’s tackle.

And after the fight is over, this amazing piscatorial resource shines on the table in a variety of ways, from delicious deep fried filets to more health-conscious recipes pulled from oven or grill.

Can there be any doubt that Clift’s long-ago book title is indeed true, that the striped bass is a super fish? I think not -- and if you’ve ever had your drag melted by a big striper, I’m sure you’ll agree!

Against that backdrop, what can Oklahoma striped bass anglers expect this year?

As of press time, biologists with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation were looking for another year of good fishing for linesiders. “I think I’d give (this year) a “B” forecast for striper anglers,” said Kim Erickson, an ODWC fisheries biologist featured prominently in Clift’s book. Erickson, who has climbed the career ladder at the department over the years, now serves as the agency’s chief of fisheries.

Keep in mind that as this was written, drought was still a common buzzword across Oklahoma, something that biologists hope will disappear with good rains that will bump up -- if not fill up -- lakes and reservoirs across the state that are struggling with low water levels.

What happens if the drought doesn’t abate? “Well, there could be more of what we see in some years of (high) summer mortality,” Erickson said. “That’s due to reservoir levels dropping down and getting low. When that happens, the thermal refuges that normally would occur in those lakes and reservoirs are being squeezed, and putting those fish into some water that is not to their liking.”

Likewise, Erickson added, continuing drought could affect the stripers that thrive in a number of Oklahoma tailraces below reservoir dams. “We’ve already seen this starting to happen with some water quality issues below the dams in tailraces,” he said. “You can get -- and we are seeing that already -- some striper fish kills, all species really, below dams on the Arkansas River system below Keystone, on the Grand River system below Fort Gibson, and perhaps even below Lake Eufaula. There have been fish kills (in 2006) because of the lack of water release or from downstream water-quality issues.”