I need general advice for the baits I should be tossing if i go striper fishing.  I'm hitting lake Powell and have never fished for stripers before, only largemouth and smallmouth.

Are they hitting shad type baits now that it's fall?  Swimbaits?  Plastics?  What baits do the stripers like assuming I can find 'em?

I have never fished landlocked stripers. Someday I would like to. I love to throw soft swimbaits and large topwaters.

At Lake Pleasant, north of Phoenix, I use 4" Storm Wildeye Swim Shad in shad color, a Husky Cisco Kid deep  diving crank bait designsd for musky fishing in natural silver scale finish, and for surface bites I like a Musky Jitterbug. A silver Krokodile spoon works well also.

zoom pearl or white fluke jr. stripers love em. even bucktail jigs work nicely.

Spooks and the like are great for stripers, the bigger the spook the bigger the stripe.  Oddly enough, roostertails and/or roadrunners in white have also proven good for me here on the Potomac.  whatever you use, work it fast.

I fish for stripers all the time.  Best baits are small swimbaits, like a 5 inch mission fish, hair raiser jig works great, in white, zara spook is good, injected lunker punker works well too.  I use the 6" white one.  If they are deeper try jigging a spoon as well.

Good luck!  Fun fish for sure!

Topwater baits like Zara Spooks.

Swimbaits that imitate shad forage, such as the Storm Swimmin' Shad in 4 and 5 inch versions.

Flukes, jerkbaits, and the like are great in shallow water.  Add a jighead for deeper water or for a faster fall (strong current).

Lipless baits like Rat-L-Traps and Yo-Zuri Rat'ln Vibes are deadly.

White bucktails tipped with Zoom Finesse Worms in Chartreuse or White.  Almost always deadly.  Can also tip with a big curl tail grub.

Basically, imitate shad.  They will be focusing on them this time of year, and can eat A LOT in a day.  Awesome fun.

I do most of my striper fishing in the Chesapeake Bay and in the ocean.  We've gotten fish up to 50 pounds on big trolling lures.  It's intense.  In freshwater, you can troll crankbaits and bucktails very effectively.

Best Bait?

Live 7" Gizzard Shad

Roger

Best Bait?

Live 7" Gizzard Shad

Roger

If going with live bait, I have the most success live lining herring.

I also use Storm 4' swim shad but in pearl color and 3/4 oz Rat-L-Trap shad color.

I used to have a lot of success trolling a Storm Big Mac in the blue herring pattern. Jigging spoons and large bucktails are productive at times as are big soft plastic shad-like lures.

Casting a big ol' popper works well also. Especially pre-sunrise in the summer when the stripers chase shad up into shallow coves.

Tom

When I was a kid we used to go to Powell and catch stripers at the dam line with cut bait. We would drop the bait about to the bottom and just wait. Usually turned into a party with all the boats tying to each other. Too bad I ain't there now, that would be some good drunken striper fishing. But now a days check this site out:

http://www.wayneswords.com/lpfish.htm

All the live bait guys - The State of Arizona thinks of Live Bait as CHEATING!!!  Not really, but to mitigate invasive species it's very selective on the lakes you can use live bait.  However, if you catch it in the lake you use it in with a casting net, that's fine.

It really depends what you like to do. I know my home lake Beltzville in PA I will use spooks or jitterbugs on the flats and have a great time catching them in the spring/summer. People also catch a lot of quality stripers on chicken liver while fishing for catfish. You can also use baitfish down deep while drifting or troll lures such as deep taildancers. There are a ton of ways you can catch them.

Rattle traps, swimbait and pencil popper.