Prep your plug bag for fall stripers.
When it comes to the fall run, I always reference the famous quote from Forrest Gump “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get”. This is the case for the fall run when it comes to what bait the stripers are going to be feeding on. When I worked at New Jersey’s Grumpys Tackle, I would tell the people “if I only had a crystal ball” when they asked me questions about where the stripers are, what they’re feeding on, and how big they are. People certainly do anticipate the fall run and want to get a jumpstart on the bite.
Proper lure prep and what you’re packing in your plug bag will give you the leg up on the angler who throws everything and the kitchen sink in their bag, only ending up using the same six lures all season long. My time at Grumpys and analyzing every fall run bite we’ve had to study patterns, I can safely say you can take my guidance to help you get on fish this fall. Maybe a few readers are prepping for your first ever fall run trip to my neck of the woods, in which I say good luck and I’ll see you out on the surf!
For my plug bag, I keep things light, usually carrying duplicates of the lure I am catching on or to let a fellow angler borrow if they aren’t catching. But of course what lure you’re throwing is based on what bait is running. We have to start at the unofficial beginning of the fall run with the infamous Mullet Run. New Jersey gets a quick run of mullet bringing out all the Mullet Lords to net for local tackle shops. Chunkers will throw fresh mullet out for some late season fluke, bluefish, and early-run stripers. If you don’t want to soak a chunk, you can throw a minnow style lure such as an SP Minnow. Daytime fishing I throw a bone colored SP but at nightfall, that’s when I bring out the blurple for night stripes and this is when a lot of stripers show up for those eager to kick off their migration.
As Halloween approaches, a different type of candy should roll into town, striper candy. Peanut bunker that spend their summers in the bay and rivers until they make the push out front. Peanut bunker can create some “National Geographic” type days with stripers pushing them up onto the beaches in massive blitzes. Elephants eat peanuts and these peanuts can bring in some hefty fall cows. My biggest striper came during an early season before the peanuts made it out front. – a 49.5-pounder off the surf on my go-to “searcher” lure that matches a peanut bunker, the trusted bucktail. I personally like an all-white bucktail with red feathers to imitate a wounded baitfish.
It’s best to have a couple different sizes in your arsenal in case you have to cast past the sandbar. Bucktails with their single hook can mix in with the school of peanuts and avoid snagging them, keeping it running “in line” with the school.
Adult bunker and their cupcake counterparts can call for a collection of lures based on preference and how they are feeding. A classic I like to throw is a topwater pencil like a Gibbs or Guppy in yellow, my dearly departed fishing partner Sean Smida’s favorite color. I have had many days of amazing topwater blitzes fishing with him, catching cows and saying “give me pencils or give me death” so always have a yellow pencil in your bag in Smida’s honor.
Another couple greats for adult bunker include Tsunami swim shads and their Tidal Pro Twitchbait, perfect imitators for mid-water-column fishing. Glidebaits are all the hype and they work great too if you want to be hip and trendy.
Last but not least, sand eel season. An easily discouraging time for the beginner who was spoiled by earlier blitz conditions, if anglers don’t know what to look for, they’re quick to throw in the towel. No blitzes, as the sand eels burrow in the sand, an angler has to cast either a green diamond jig or a Tsunami Sand Eel and slowly retrieve it. Sand eels roll in at the end of the run, in my neck of the woods, that means December and that’s my favorite time to go searching for stripers, the quiet cold beaches welcome me and catching some hungry sand sifters is an extra treat to a peaceful day as a late-season surfcaster.
