Striper Fishing with Live Bait
Posted in Fly Fishing Gear on the November 24, 2009
You can catch big stripers up and down the East Coast each year, using a variety of methods and many kinds of tackle. If you wish to take full advantage of your chances for a striped bass longer than 40 inches, then live bait on a 3-way rig is your best option. Standard baits in the New England region are eel, hickory shad, scup and menhaden, also called porgy or bunker. Live baits work well no matter the time of day or day of the week. Start fishing seriously for stripers in May, and you can keep on until ice becomes a problem on the boat’s deck in late November. Big bass over 60 pounds have been caught at night or during broad daylight.
Once you find a location that fish like, the rest is simple. It is the type of fishing that, with some straightforward directions, your grandmother could use to snag a fish, providing she could land it. A 3-way rig was the downfall of one of the heaviest bass ever landed, a 76-pounder caught on a reef by Captain Bob Rochetta at Montauk Point. This is the second-heaviest striper ever recorded, second only to a 78-pounder landed at a New Jersey jetty by Al McReynolds. The three-way rig has been used successfully to catch fish between 55 and 70 pounds in bass-filled waters at Plum Gut, The Sluiceway, Valiant Rock, and Sugar Reef, to name a few.
If you think that a three way rig is hard to fashion, think again, it’s actually quite simple. The name explains it all – the starting point is a three way swivel, one from your main line, and two leader lines. One of these lines is created from a dropper loop – simple enough to design, a loop to attach your sinker to which allows bounce during a running tide. Experiment with weights – depending on the area you are fishing you can utilize as few as four ounces or as many as twenty. The second line will be home to a fluorocarbon leader generally about five feet in length. Remember to balance out your line – decide if you’re looking for the unobtrusive approach or if you’re looking for a stronger approach. It’s not that difficult to find the right balance between the two. Generally a fifty pound line is best for this leader as it offers exactly the right balance for most. Depending on the weather, you might find that a thirty pound fluorocarbon line is best on a day that’s especially clear and you’re in clear water.
This type of rig can get very expensive and this is one downside of it. However, you can control costs fairly simple to avoid turning this fun hobby into one that requires massive spending. When you factor in the cost of Gemakatsu hooks, Seaguar Fluorocarbon line, and a three way Spro Swivel, you can soon find your costs mounting up. But, if you set your rig up so that your main line is your heaviest (55 lbs is ideal), your leader line is heavy (around 50 lbs) and your dropper loop is your lightest (30 lbs is preferred) you can cut down the cost of losses by merely snapping the dropper loop losing only your sinker. The bottom line is that the sinker is the least expensive item on your rig and is the easiest to replace cost-wise.
Braided line is the best choice for your main line. The benefits of this type of line is that the smaller diameter provides you the ability to use less weight to keep your bait in the strike zone during a moving tide. Since it has minimal stretch (especially compared to monofilament) you get the added benefit of feeling exactly what is going on allowing you to get your hooks set much easier. The ability to identify a mussel bed, a rocky bottom or a sandy bottom is greatly enhanced with braided line. Fireline, Power Pro, and Stren all make effective braided line. Daiwa also makes a braid that is woven from twice as many strands (8 versus 4) over their competitors. Unlike most braided lines that feel like they need care before they’re used the Daiwa braided line offers a very smooth line and is very limp making it a premier line for this application.
Striper fishing with live bait can be an extremely fun adventure. To make it more enjoyable, you should make sure you have the right type of reels. Some of Daiwa’s most popular reels include: Daiwa Saltiga 30T, Daiwa Seaborg 300FB, and Daiwa Viento.