Photo by Ron Sinfelt.

After a cold, windy winter, you've been itching for a fight for months, and you'll find plenty of takers at a lake or river near you. You might tangle with an ornery school of striped bass at Lake Texoma, or a feisty school of striped bass/white bass hybrids at Lake Waurika.

You won't get any black eyes with these muscle-bound brawlers, but you might get sore arms fighting fish whose power is measured in horsepower and torque. If you prepare them correctly, they taste great, too.

Along with sand bass, these predators occupy the top tier of the food chain in many lakes that aren't well suited for largemouth bass. The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation has spent a lot of time and effort developing its striper and hybrid fisheries, and 2008 should offer excellent fishing throughout the state.

Here's a look at top prospects for your region.

STRIPED BASS
Oklahoma essentially has only two major striper waters, Lake Texoma and the Arkansas River. The latter includes its major tributaries, most notably the Lower Illinois River.

Gary Peterson, the ODWC's east-central region fisheries biologist, said the ODWC does not stock stripers anywhere in his region. The stripers in this part of the state reproduce naturally and are descendents of fish stocked in Lake Keystone many years ago.

However, the Lower Illinois attracts stripers from the Arkansas because of cold-water discharges from the Lake Tenkiller Dam. When the stripers arrive, they also find a high-protein diet of rainbow trout, so it's no surprise these stripers take up residence and grow very large.

"If you're out in the Arkansas River and it heats up to 70, 75 degrees, the water coming out of the Lower Illinois is 60 to 65 degrees," Peterson said. "It's like an air-conditioner, and it will pull them right up into it."

To catch them, timing is crucial, Peterson said. Short bursts from the dam won't have much effect, but long flushes will summon the stripers.

"They have to have long releases to pull them up," he explained. "The normal hydropower releases of 4 to 6 hours don't really pull them all the way to the dam, but if it's timed just right, a 4- to 6-hour release will turn them on in the evenings. The water is deeper below the Hwy. 64 Bridge, and that will turn them on."

Finding them is easy. Peterson recommended fishing the deep holes between the dam and the Arkansas River. If they can't make it to the dam, they'll seek refuge in the last pool of deep water they can reach. In low water, you can even catch them from a canoe.