Spawning seasons aside, stripers might travel many miles daily. Movement can be both vertical and horizontal over a lake's bottom. When water conditions warrant, they spend considerable time in the depths of the lake.  Their deep water movement from one section of the lake to another may be detected with a depth/fish finder of good quality.

Anglers regularly tell of following schools of surface feeding stripers for miles.  At some point feeding stops and the fish disappear.  Most movement is less subtle.   Stripers prefer to feed in shallow water or in the upper one-third of the water column.  They move to the most shallow water under the cover of darkness to feed on unsuspecting forage fish.  Feeding  continues as they move back toward deeper water when daylight replaces night. Stripers use the old river and creek channels as deep water roadways.  From time to time they stop to feed where river and creek channels  intersect.  They will also check- up where a  point meets a channel or where the channel makes a sharp turn.  Fishermen should wait with baited hooks at such places to intercept the  "striped nomads."