Striped bass live up to 15 years and grow to over 100 pounds in salt water. When South Carolina's Santee-Cooper Reservoir was finished in the 1940s, stripers were inadvertantly left behind. A few years later, fishery scientists noticed these stripers were completing their life cycle entirely in freshwater. This discovery led to intensive culture and the socking of striped bass in reservoirs. Today, striped bass are raised at Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery in Burnet, Texas, Uvalde National Fish Hatchery at Uvalde, Texas, and at Tishomingo National Fish Hatchery in Tishomingo, Oklahoma.
Gulls are fish-eating birds that target schools of shad near the surface.
Once you find a group of surface-feeding bass, keep casting. The surface action can be fast and furious. Those fish not at the surface are probably suspended at 20-40 feet deep over much deeper water. Try jigging spoons in deep water or trolling live shad. Concentrate on rocky points, around islands and ledges, and old river channels.