Norman O'Neal has been guiding striped bass fishermen on the Red River below Lake Texoma since 1992. He's had some very good years of fishing, but 2009 is shaping up as one of the best.

Take, for example, the memorable morning of March 25 with Bo Herrera of Farmington, N.M. It started slowly, as fishing days often do. Then O'Neal ran his custom-built airboat way downriver in an effort to stock up on the kind of baits he uses to get the attention of a trophy striper.

He used a cast net to catch gizzard shad as big as 12 inches, then ran the big, fast boat back upstream to where the fish were holding. O'Neal rigged the oversized baits on No. 2 treble hooks and suspended them about four feet under balloons, so they would drift far enough away that the boat would not spook the wary fish.

Within 30 minutes, Herrera had landed and released eight stripers. The smallest weighed 16 pounds. The biggest weighed 30 pounds, 3 ounces. By comparison, it takes a striper weighing 31.5 pounds to qualify for Texas Parks and Wildlife Top 50 list of the biggest stripers reported caught in Texas.

Since the Red River itself belongs to Oklahoma, an angler fishing from a boat would have to produce a record fish in that state. The Texas record for a Red River striper was caught by a bank fishermen on the Texas side. The 2002 monster fish weighed 42.7 pounds.

O'Neal doesn't expect to beat that mark – at least not this year – but he hasn't seen this many big stripers in the river in nearly 20 years. Except for the 30-pounder, Herrara's catch wasn't all that unusual. On another exceptional day, O'Neal's clients caught four of more than 20 pounds and six others bigger than 17 pounds.

On April 20, Mike Mohr of Edmond, Okla., caught nine stripers. The smallest was 16 pounds. The biggest weighed 23 pounds.

"Some days are better than others for big fish, but we usually get a couple of 20-pounders every trip," O'Neal said. "The water temperature on April 20 was 59 degrees. When it reaches 65 degrees, the fishing should be explosive."

All the big fish are released to fight another day. If anglers want a trophy for their wall, they call a taxidermist, provide the dimensions of their catch and have a fiberglass replica made.

The phenomenon doesn't surprise Texas Parks and Wildlife fisheries biologist Bruce Hysmith, who's watched the cycle repeat itself numerous times while at Texoma.

"We had the big floods in 2007," Hysmith recalled. "The water in the lake breached the spillway by six inches and the flood gates were open, fluming lots of bait and game fish downstream. It looks like some of those fish have grown up. We've seen this in the past. The big difference now is that anglers like Norman O'Neal are releasing the big fish. That's good news for the future."

The biggest Texas striped bass are invariably caught in rivers below dams. Oxygen-rich water flowing downstream is loaded with baitfish. Not only do the stripers have plenty to eat, they're better able to survive the summer heat in flowing water.

Big striped bass in the lakes sometimes die of oxygen deprivation because they seek deep, cooler water that's low in oxygen. Another factor is fishing pressure, which is more intense in the lakes than the rivers. It takes expensive boats like O'Neal's airboat to efficiently navigate the river.

Big stripers caught in the deep water of Lake Texoma often die from stress, even if they're released. Fish caught and released in the shallow river are much more likely to survive. Yet another factor is that there are fewer stripers in the river, meaning more available forage for the existing fish.