I fish for stripers in MA one week a year, and I am slowly learning the ropes.

 

I mostly fish off rocky jetties instead of true surf fishing.

 

Black bass are my natural targets, so stripers take some adjustment.  

 

I know you have to adapt to your quarry, but I have low confidence in things like diamond jigs, striper tubes, and bucktails with eel strips.

 

I feel at home with inshore baitcasting gear, and bass baits (or similar) that have translated over to stripers for me include walking baits and poppers.  I even tried pink buzzbaits and got some stripers.

 

What other back bass methods and baits have translated over to striper fishing for you without much adaptation?  What differences should I try to consider when out there for stripers?

I was seriously addicted to chasing linesiders for over 20 years.

Chased them up & down the east coast from Maine to North Carolina.

Did a ton of damage off the New Jersey Coast - 

Both from the beach and the rocks - almost exclusively at night.

IME, while some of what happens in sweet water bass fishing may translate to the salt water bass, most of it revolves around schoolies or smaller fish.

The Big Girls are a completely different animal and are driven by food & tides. 

Live baits rules, dead bait comes in second and day in & day out, it's tough to beat a jig & eel day or night.

Surface baits produce but like sweet water bass fishing, it's a small percentage of the time. 

If you hook into a stout striper, especially in current, standard bass gear will be tested to it's limits and beyond. 

Tip time - the transition from ebb (low tide) to flood (high tide) can be very productive period.

Bait has to reposition as the current changes direction.

Makes them very vulnerable and stripers know it. 

Good Luck

A-Jay

@A-Jay awesome, thanks.  Good to hear from someone who knows.  This weekend I will pack up the bucktails accordingly.

Jerkbaits, walking baits, and big swimbaits. And pencil poppers . I’ve never caught them in salt but those are always what seems to work in the river 

1 hour ago, A-Jay said:

Chased them up & down the east coast from Maine to North Carolina.

Did a ton of damage off the New Jersey Coast 

 

Been wanting to ask you Andy; are you familiar with Giglio's Tackle Shop in Seabright, NJ?

Thru the 60s & 70s, Giglio's was the prime watering hole for jetty jockies. 

 

Roger

 

2 minutes ago, RoLo said:

 

Been wanting to ask you Andy; are you familiar with Giglio's Tackle Shop in Seabright, NJ?

Thru the 60s & 70s, Giglio's was the prime watering hole for jetty jockies. 

 

Roger

 

I am not Roger ~

Was initially assigned on the Jersey Shore in 94.

Although there were a ton of shops sprinkled along the coast,

and I visited many them; specifically looking for the Biggest Live Eels and the freshest Bunker,

I do not recall that shop - might just be CRS.  

Eventually solved the bait deal by moonlighting in one for a few years down in Cape May. 

Besides always having access to great bait (so important)

I met some very good sticks and Learned a Ton.

Now back to out regularly scheduled program. 

A-Jay

41 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

I am not Roger ~

Was initially assigned on the Jersey Shore in 94.

Although there were a ton of shops sprinkled along the coast,

and I visited many them; specifically looking for the Biggest Live Eels and the freshest Bunker,

I do not recall that shop - might just be CRS.  

Eventually solved the bait deal by moonlighting in one for a few years down in Cape May. 

Besides always having access to great bait (so important)

I met some very good sticks and Learned a Ton.

Now back to out regularly scheduled program. 

A-Jay

 

Back then, Giglio's & Al Ristori pretty much ruled the Jersey coast. news leaked by the mosquito fleets 

 

You're right: "live eels" (don't forget a towel) and moss bunkers (menhaden)

Fishing out of my boat, I'd stop before daybreak at the pound nets on the west shore of Sandy Hook.

Bunkers (direct from net men) were $1 a piece. At first I kept them alive in an aerated garbage can

that I placed in the bow of my 14' Starcraft rowboat (Cut holes in my hull for intake and overflow hoses).

Over time I learned that that 'fresh' dead bunkers from a drifting boat, were just as fruitful as live bunkers.

I still bought live bunkers at the pound nets, but replaced my hundred-pound livewell with a cooler of ice  

 

Roger

1 hour ago, RoLo said:

 

Back then, Giglio's & Al Ristori pretty much ruled the Jersey coast. news leaked by the mosquito fleets 

 

You're right: "live eels" (don't forget a towel) and moss bunkers (menhaden)

Fishing out of my boat, I'd stop before daybreak at the pound nets on the west shore of Sandy Hook.

Bunkers (direct from net men) were $1 a piece. At first I kept them alive in an aerated garbage can

that I placed in the bow of my 14' Starcraft rowboat (Cut holes in my hull for intake and overflow hoses).

Over time I learned that that 'fresh' dead bunkers from a drifting boat, were just as fruitful as live bunkers.

I still bought live bunkers at the pound nets, but replaced my hundred-pound livewell with a cooler of ice  

 

Roger

You were doing it right Roger.

I fished a lot of 'rigged eels' - that was a process. #longneedle

But unless a blue go it - I could fish & re-freeze the same one for months !

The gents who owned /ran the shop I worked at, were commercial fisherman, specifically bunkerheads.

I met them when I 'Boarded' them.

Always had killer bait.

and when the giant black drum ran in the bay, their 'connections' kept us in fresh clams 24/7.

Those things were like gold  . . . . 

Fun times.

A-Jay

 

 

Rigged eels and bunker spoons were mainstays in the New York Bight (esp. Tony Accetta white spoons).

 

For schoolies, I usually resort to sandworms and shoestring eels. I love the way a striper blasts an eel.

They must know that if they don't, the eel might wriggle back out of the bass's mouth (they do)  

 

Roger

 

 

@A-Jay @RoLo @TnRiver46

Thanks guys for the information and entertainment.  

I am probably going to find out for myself no matter what... but where I go my spooks often get pecked at and occasionally blasted... I know that slug-gos are popular for stripers and I have learned to follow up largemouth top water misses with a fluke or senko...

So putting two and two together I'm thinking Ill try follow up baits for striper misses.  Will it work?

1 hour ago, snake95 said:

@A-Jay @RoLo @TnRiver46

Thanks guys for the information and entertainment.  

I am probably going to find out for myself no matter what... but where I go my spooks often get pecked at and occasionally blasted... I know that slug-gos are popular for stripers and I have learned to follow up largemouth top water misses with a fluke or senko...

So putting two and two together I'm thinking Ill try follow up baits for striper misses.  Will it work?

Yes. 

Try to find and fish clean moving water.  If fishing off the rocks, the fish are at your feet. Not 50 yards away.

If fishing off the beach, find and fish structure.  Humps, slews, steep banks,  rocks, cuts and anything else in the sand that's different.   Look for bait.  Big stripers will be right in the wash; white water is good.  Casts parallel to the beach produce.   Low light is nice.

Good Luck and whatever you do,  don't thumb grab a bluefish . . . .

A-Jay 

If you are fishing from a boat, NOTHING beats an Alabama Rig, including live bait.

 

 

On 6/30/2020 at 7:22 PM, A-Jay said:

If fishing off the rocks, the fish are at your feet. Not 50 yards away.

If fishing off the beach, find and fish structure.  Humps, slews, steep banks,  rocks, cuts and anything else in the sand that's different.   Look for bait.  Big stripers will be right in the wash; white water is good.  Casts parallel to the beach produce.   Low light is nice.

Just a quick follow up: I mostly fished with my 12 yo son when I could, where I could (as usual) - which mostly meant early morning jetty fishing.  I mostly fished swimbait jigs with paddletails, and had two awesome 10+ fish mornings, which is more than ever in my experience. 

 

Relied heavily on Zman/TT Lures' stout HeadlockZ jigheads with 5" DieZel Minnows.  Kind of sweetwater bass style but saltwater tough.   

 

We got on a pattern and ran with it.

 

The first day with my boy he was on them - fish after fish right at his feet as A-Jay said, right in the foam where waves hit the rocks.  He had the time of his life.

 

Got lucky one day with the terns acting as my fishfinders and putting me on a school hammering the baitfish below surface.  

 

Thanks again.