No live bait onboard? No problem!
It’s funny how we as humans often find the easiest way to achieve a desired result; and then, over time, any other method is cast aside as inadequate, working too hard, or just plain impossible. I remember when I was first getting into striper fishing, live herring were still legal to use as bait, and within a few miles of any active run, it was believed to be gospel, that if you weren’t fishing live herring, you weren’t catching fish. The herring moratorium soon followed, and somehow, fishermen managed to continue catching fish.
The last 15 years have seen a dramatic increase in the numbers of adult bunker throughout Northeast and Mid-Atlantic waters, naturally, the old methods came rushing to the rescue of stripermen who were suddenly seeing many more opportunities to catch bass around pods of bunker, particularly in the spring. So ‘snag and drop’, chunking, yo-yoing…all these ‘messy’ methods that required catching bunker became the norm.
The downside being that it wasn’t always possible to get them, and many anglers have a hard time capturing them and keeping them.
Additionally, keeping “pogies” alive requires a good livewell, and attention to water quality and no 90-degree corners; these were further deterrents to boaters who weren’t set up for that kind of fishing. Then we have the surfcasters and kayakers who, just don’t have the means for that kind of technology. Advance the tape a decade and ‘snag-and-drop’ fishing is now illegal (or mostly so, see Legal Snag & Drop below), which complicates things even further for the practitioners of this ancient, yet very effective, method.
Sense & Nonsense
On the one hand, it’s easy to understand why anglers might feel that live baits will always out-fish artificials. One prominent charter captain from Dartmouth, MA, Ned Kitteridge once said, “Once you get something with a heartbeat out there, everything changes.”
The story that went with the quote told of bass hammering bunker in Buzzards Bay but the fish, that were blasting bait all over the surface, wouldn’t touch a single plug or plastic; however when a live bunker was lobbed into the fray, the hookup was instantaneous! I have definitely seen times where schools of bunker were so thick that it was next to impossible to stand out with a plug amidst the thousands upon thousands of the real thing, these are times when you have to ‘read the room’ and understand that you are going to have to adapt.
That adaptation may, in fact, prove to be that a live bunker truly is the only thing the fish will eat, my experience puts that result on the rarer side, success can usually be had with an artificial, it just requires observation and imitation. I believe that the biggest factor at play, when feeding stripers repeatedly ignore a plug, is not that they are ‘outing it’ as fake, but rather that its actions don’t register with the rest of what’s going on below the surface and they are ignoring it almost accidently, because they are keyed in on the movements and actions of hundreds or thousands of the living, breathing real thing.
Think about what that must be like. A large (or huge) bait ball, being corralled by a school of brute stripers. The bunker are panicking as the bass charge in to feed. Suddenly it’s all-out mayhem as the baits run for their lives, scattering in every direction, thousands of bunker streaming by at top speed. The stripers are competitive and also can’t afford to let any opportunity to take down a bunker pass them by. These fish can’t take even an extra second to scrutinize, they have to strike when the opportunity presents itself, and they only have a split second to do it. If your swimmer comes slowly thumping through the chaos, it’s not going to trigger that split-second aggression, and the fish are very likely to ignore it. But take a swimmer that can be fished at high speed and streak it through the same scene, if there are predators within reach of that plug, the odds are very high that you will draw some kind of interest.
If you don’t draw any interest after several casts, you will need to start changing things up, varying speed and depth, fishing topwater, mimicking a dying bait, adding in pauses or intermittent speed changes… all you’re trying to do is unlock the pattern that turns the fish on that day.
Top To Bottom
There’s a strong tendency among striper fishermen to throw topwater plugs at blitzing fish and never explore what options might draw strikes below the surface. We all love topwater explosions, and that infatuation can quickly increase to obsession when the fish are big. One of the biggest mistakes stripermen make is trying to force the situation to work using the lure that they want to use instead of letting the fish tell them that they don’t like it and then having the determination and situational awareness to figure out the bite. In addition to reading the mood of the situation and how that mood dictates the actions of the bait, we also have be flexible when it comes to the depth at which the most voracious feeding is taking place; sometimes the action at the surface is just the tip of the iceberg.
With all that said, I’m usually going to start up top too, when I see visible signs of life (or an all-out melee) at the surface. For me, that typically means throwing the 9-inch Doc, whether I’m standing on a rock, sitting in my yak or casting from the deck of a boat. I like spook-style plugs because of their versatility: I can fish them at nearly any speed, I can stop the plug after a big fish ‘swings and misses’, I can speed it up or slow it down without losing action. Another spook that I’m really excited about for 2025 is the Yo-Zuri Mag Pencil, this 8-inch spook boasts longer casts, tuna-grade hardware and frantic action that is sure to be a home run for the Northeast striper scene. There are lots of great smaller spooks, but when bunker are at the top of the menu, that big profile is everything.
The spook has taken the topwater striper world by storm, especially over the last 10 years since the Doc has been revealed to the masses. But an unfortunate side effect has been a dramatic downturn in the use of pencil poppers, especially among boaters and kayakers. But anglers should not brush off these splashy topwaters as inferior, because they simply are not inferior! Boasting the longest casts in saltwater surface plugs, these baits can be fished fast or slow and really give off that panicked baitfish vibe. Some great options are the Jobo Senior from Guppy Lures and the Surface Cruiser by Yo-Zuri.
Wake ‘Em Up
| LEGAL SNAG & DROP |
| Five years ago, in an effort to reduce the mortality rate on released stripers over the 31-inch limit, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) implemented a coastwide regulation requiring the use of an inline circle hook when anglers are using any natural aquatic bait – be it live, dead, or cut – to target striped bass. It was thought at the time that the “snag and drop” using a weighted treble to snag and fish bunker for bass was thus dead.
But as they say, “necessity is the mother of invention.” Many tackle shops at the Jersey Shore are now offering “legal” inline circle hook rigs for snagging and dropping live baits for stripers. These rigs essentially snell or otherwise fuse a couple of inline circles to one another, shank-to-shank, with a barrel swivel and beads for allowing it to slide like a traditional fish-finder rig. Basically, one circle will snag the bait, the other will find its mark in the corner of a striper’s mouth when it turns and burns on your offering.
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Observation is often the key to success, and it’s all-too-common to see bunker running away from danger, leaving a bulging wake as they speed off, desperate to find safety. For a long time, we only had waking metal lips and their slow, plodding wobble just doesn’t fit the profile for a freaked out menhaden making a mad dash for the shallows. But, we now have several options. The best option, in my opinion, is the Magic Swimmer, originally made by Sebile, but now sold under the Berkeley label. The slow-sink 9-incher can be fished very fast without blowing out and will leave that signature bulge as you crank it hard back to the rod tip. I recommend removing the tail hook and beefing the belly trebles up to a 4/0 up front and a 3/0 in the rear.
Another great ‘wake-able’ bait is the NLBN K-Tail, this realistic soft plastic borrows some technology from the boot-tail swimbaits that fetch ungodly sums from the largemouth crowd and makes it affordable and readily available to the striper guys. Rigged on a BKK Titanrider swimbait hook, these bulky baits will swim right on the surface, leaving a splashy wake as they swim. The results I’ve had are all the proof I need, striped bass believe what they see when a K-Tail swims by.
If you’re one of these ‘all topwater’ guys, you might be surprised by how often the best bites come well below the surface when the bunker are thick. Here again, the goal is not just to get down to the level of the predators and sashay through the scene trying to entice a bite. Instead, you’re trying to trigger that competitive response. That means getting your plug or plastic down to depth and working it hard along, below and even through, the bunker schools, I like to fish hard and fast with a rapid stop-and-go retrieve.
There are two ways to go here, you can go with a deep-diving large swimming plug or you can fish a big soft plastic on a leadhead. Most of the deep-divers being fished around the bunker schools these days are wooden plugs made by garage builders, things like trollers made by Chris Voorhies or Time & Tide Lures, I use a wooden creation I designed myself and there are many other great options like Big Water medium and deep diving pikes, if you want to get in on this kind of action, I suggest you plan to hit a few plug shows next winter and plan to get there early!
The good news, for those of you who didn’t make time to wait in line for hours at a winter show, is that you can do a lot of the same things with soft plastics. There are many local and national lure makers that churn out bunker-sized offerings, most of them fit into one of two categories; straight tail and paddletail. Many of the straight-tail baits feature a long, rat-like tail that whips and shimmies on the retrieve. Paddletails utilize a soft plastic ‘paddle’ to simulate the rhythmic swimming of a live fish. Anything from 8 to 14 inches is fair game around the bunker schools; check in on local manufacturers like Zinger Baits or go with reliable national makers like NLBN and Z-Man, or the molded Tsunami swim shads.
Fished on heads heavy enough to get them deep, but not so heavy that they bog them down, these baits can be ripped through the kill zone and will draw thunderous strikes with the added benefit of a single hook.
Faking Death
Sometimes, your best bet is the opposite of replicating frantic escape maneuvers and heroic runs attempting to cheat death, sometimes you’re better off to try and play the part of a bunker living out its final moments. Whether that means slowly waking along the surface or sinking through the water column in a flashy free-fall, predatory fish are programmed to take advantage of these opportunities and presenting them at the right time can yield the kind of ‘results’ that require two hands to lift. What’s even better, is that you can mimic these dying actions with a variety of lures, giving you a spread of options when your gut tells you to take the dying route. (Pro tip: one of the best times to go this route is when bass and bluefish are mixed together and feeding on the same bunker school).
At the surface, you can go with a large surface metal lip like a big Beachmaster Danny or a surface Pike from GRS and just crawl it through the hot zone, this tends to be especially effective in low light or snotty conditions. One of my favorite ways to play the dying game, is with a spook that rests in a level position, like the Doc. I will work the plug hard and splashy, before letting it rest on the surface for long periods of non-movement. I learned these moves watching discarded bunker floundering on the surface after being live-lined, and it’s a deadly tactic.
Going deeper, one of the most productive methods to hit the striper scene over the last five years derives all of its effectiveness from the genetic response that happens when a predator spots wounded prey: they can’t help but go after it. The flutter spoon or drift spoon was designed to mimic dying shad in freshwater lakes and they have found a permanent home along the Striper Coast thanks to their dead-nuts replication of a dying bunker sinking through the water column. If you see big bass lurking deep below a bunker school on your fish finder, send the spoon down and the odds are good that you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
With the month of May now upon us and bunker streaming into places like western Long Island Sound, the Jersey Shore, Narragansett Bay and Cape Cod Bay, there will be many opportunities to cast to feeding stripers. Reading the situation and being prepared to cover the column will go a long way toward ensuring that you find success nearly every time you find that volatile combination of bass and bunker. Make the most of it!
