I am interested in learning to catch hybrids and stripes. I have been on one striper trip and had a blast. Does anyone have any tips as to how to get started learning to catch these things? I know most people use live bait and the best bait depends on your region. I am clueless as to what I need to be doing. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

There's a big difference as to what you would need to catch Hybrid Striper vs. Striped Bass. Which species are you targeting primarily? Will you be fishing from a boat or the bank? River, Lake, or Salt water? All of these scenarios would require different equipment, from rod & reel, to terminal tackle, to Lure/Bait.

What works depends a lot on the areas you're fishing. We don't have any stripers but lots of wipers. I catch a lot of my wipers on swimbaits, rattle traps, and live shad. Lots of people around here troll for them and when it gets cold we catch a lot on jigging spoons.

They will hit lots of your common largemouth lures and baits.

Im in Alabama fishing freshwater lakes. I guess stripers would be the main target.

7ft medium action rod with 15 to 20 pound mono should work.

It helps to have a depth finder. Look for shad and other baitfish, stripers follow the food. once you find them use live shad or spoons to catch them.

Make your bait stand out, if theyre feeding on a school, put your bait, above, below or to the side of the school. the isolated fish get eaten first.

I'd probably bump that rod to at least a medium heavy, but of course the gear selection should depend on the size of baits he is tossing and the size of the fish he's targeting. Bass gear is fine in areas where stripers don't get particularly big.... ...Muskie or salt water gear may be necessary in places where you are tossing big baits for monstrous fish in snag filled waters....If you already have a swimbait rod with a wide capacity reel you should be fine in most cases.

Shad , skipjack & blueback herring, and shiners are usually the go to baits in the South for stripers. Some guys use sunfish or live trout where legal. Shrimp works, too. Be prepared to catch a fair share of catfish and / or gar using these baits.

I would Google Stu Tinney, he is one of leading freshwater striper anglers in the country, you may find some useful information.  He was living down here in Florida for a few years and I fished with him quite a bit.

 

I've done my share of striper fishing on Long Island and the Jersey shore, I would be using the same set up as I do for snook and juvenile tarpon down here, that gear should do well in freshwater as well.  A mh 10/20 inshore rod with 4000 series reel, being a braid man I'd be using 20 lb. should be sufficient for average sized fish, but stripers can get large, that's when the fun begins.   Just about any bass lure, spoon or bucktail jigs will work, I might try something different just for the heck of it.  Barracuda tubes were first use not for cudas but for stripers, legend has it a fisherman from Maryland was the originator, tubes were created to resemble eels.  Great fun to catch fish on a surgical tube, just something else to do for a little variety.

Here in the Mid South most striper fishermen use live bait. Gizzard shad, threadfin and skipjack

are the baits of choice, but bluegill work, too! A strong second is The Rig. This year some friends

and I have caught some monsters, 38 lbs best!

 

As far as gear is concerned, I use either a heavy bass rod for live bait (MBR844C) or a glass rod

for The Rig (Lamiglas SR705R). I have a CTE200GT on both rigs, 80 lb Sufix 832 line for the Alabama

Rig, 17 lb P-Line for live bait.

 

One more suggestion for live bait: 2/0 Gamakatsu Octopus Circle Hook and a 3 oz weight on a three way swivel.