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Striper Fishing with Live Bait

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.

The measure of the leader is questionable, since some use heavier line when they fish around hazards, like lobster pots. Some prefer 50 lb., as it is a good balance between sneaky and strong. There are days of clear water that make the bass line-shy, and on days like that some use 30 lb fluoro. Terminal tackle is pricey now, and between Seaguar Fluorocarbon, Spro Swivels and Gamakatsu hooks, your rig can get rather expensive. A successful means of avoiding losing countless rigs to the bottom is to employ a lighter line for your dropper loop than the leader. This way, if you get caught, you can snap the dropper loop, losing just your sinker, and still reclaim the rig and your bait. For instance, if your main line is 55, your leader is 50, and that makes your dropper loop around 30 lb.

For the main line, use naught but braided line. Using braided line has a few distinct benefits for this application. One is that its smaller diameter offers less resistance against a moving tide, letting you use less weight to keep the bait in the strike zone. Possibly an even bigger advantage is that braided lines offer minimal line stretch. With monofilament, you can typically expect up to 10% line stretch. With almost no stretch with braid, you can feel everything that is going on, and you get excellent hook sets. You can plainly tell if you are fishing over a sand bottom, mussel bed, or boulders as a result of the line’s sensitivity. There are many effective brands available, such as Fireline, Stren, Daiwa, and Power Pro. The definite advantage that Daiwa has is that the braid is weaved from eight strands, while many others use four. Most braids feel as though you have to break them in before they are useful, but Daiwa is a very limp and smooth line.

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, Seaborg SB300FB, and Daiwa Viento.