"Their condition will improve as the water cools, as it does every year," Mauck said. "Their poorest condition is in September, especially for larger stripers because of poor water quality and warm water. As the lake de-stratifies, their condition improves. Texoma doesn't have a thermal refuge that those fish would like to have during the hot summer months.

"As far as next year, we should have real good fishing," he added. "Last year was what I'd call a bummer rather than banner year. It was 'Code Dead' rather than Code Red."

Code Red is what happens when the stripers get aggressive and start schooling.

Sooner Lake
This is one of only a few lakes where the ODWC stocks stripers. Bill Wentroth, north-central region fisheries supervisor for the ODWC, said the agency used to give Sooner Lake 54,000 hybrids per year, but recently changed the formula to 27,000 hybrids and 27,000 stripers in an attempt to create a more exciting fishery for anglers.

"We're trying to build a trophy striper fishery here," Wentroth said. "We have seen some fish in the 20-pound range, not a lot, but we see them in the heated discharge area."

Threadfin shad drive the sport fishing in this relatively small lake, so the stripers go as the threadfins go. In the heated discharge area, the combined daily limit for sand bass, hybrids and stripers is five.

HYBRIDS
Anglers often use hybrids and stripers interchangeably, which can be confusing to newcomers to Oklahoma and visitors who don't know which specie of fish lives where. Basically, the hybrid striper is king of most waters west of Lake Eufaula, and although they don't have the same following that largemouth bass have at Grand Lake or stripers at Texoma, the anglers who live near the western lakes revere them.

For them as well, 2008 should be an excellent year.

East-Central
The ODWC doesn't stock hybrids in this part of the state, Peterson said, but hybrids do wash downstream into the Verdigris, Neosho and Arkansas rivers. Although there are no established hybrid hotspots, Peterson said hybrids do gather in good numbers beneath any dam during the spring. He recommended Kerr, W.D. Mayo, Ft. Gibson and Eufaula dams.