Striped Bass Lures: What to Throw and When

Walk into any tackle shop near the coast and you'll see a wall of striper lures. You don't need most of them. A small bag of the right types, in a few sizes, catches bass from the beach, the rocks and the boat. What matters more is knowing what each lure does and when to tie it on.

Bucktails

If you could own only one striper lure, it would be a bucktail jig. It works from the surf, a kayak or a boat, by day or night, shallow or deep, and it looks like almost anything a bass eats.

How to fish it: cast, let it sink close to the bottom, and swim it back slowly to moderately so it glides just above the sand or rocks. It should swim, not drag or bounce. The most common mistake is going too heavy; pick the lightest bucktail that reaches the fish in the current you're fishing.

Tip it. A 4- to 6-inch soft-plastic or pork-style strip on the hook gives the jig a familiar baitfish profile and a natural, fluttering look.

Sizes: 3/4 to 2 ounces covers most surf fishing. Inlets with strong current may need 3 ounces.

Swimming plugs

These are the lures that catch big bass in the surf at night. They're all retrieved slowly; let the plug do the work.

• Floating minnow plugs (about 6 inches): the classic slim swimmer. Best in calm to moderate water. A steady, slow retrieve gives a tight wobble.
• Bottle plugs: fat, big-profile swimmers that cast into wind and dig into rough surf. Give the reel a few fast turns to get it down, then slow down. When it's swimming right, you'll feel the rod tip pulse.
• Darters: fished in current and rough water, where water pushing on the angled face makes them dart side to side. Like the bottle plug, crank fast for a moment to get it working, then slow down. They take practice, because you can't feel a darter swimming the way you feel a bottle plug, but they've caught as many big night bass as anything.
• Needlefish: a slim, sinking stick of a plug that does almost nothing in calm water and swims with a subtle wobble in current or surf. Carry a few lengths and weights to match conditions.
• Metal-lip surface swimmers: big, wide-wobbling plugs that swim right in the surface film. Throw them when bass are on large bait: adult bunker, herring or snapper blues. Retrieve slowly; an occasional twitch makes it skitter.

At night, go dark: black or dark purple plugs are the standard. Reel about one crank every second or two. If a fish taps it and misses, keep the same slow pace. It will often come back.

Topwater

Surface lures do two jobs: they catch fish, and they show you where fish are. A swirl or boil behind a popper tells you there's a bass there even if it doesn't eat.

• Pencil poppers: long, slim, and one of the farthest-casting lures in the surf. Pump the rod while reeling slowly and the plug splashes and dances across the top. It can pull bass up even when they aren't feeding. It's the go-to daytime surf plug.
• Cupped poppers: move more water than a pencil and work as a search lure over a wide area.
• Walk-the-dog plugs: in calm water, slow rhythmic rod pulls make them swing side to side and leave a wake. When the bite is tough, they'll draw strikes when other lures won't.

Metal

• Casting spoons (1 to 2 ounces): throw a long way from the beach and can be worked shallow.
• Diamond and slim metal jigs (2 to 6 ounces from a boat): nothing casts farther, and nothing sinks faster. Fish them two ways: yo-yo by sweeping the rod up and letting the jig fall near the bottom, or squid by dropping to the bottom and reeling fast to the top. When bass are feeding on sand eels, metal jigs catch most of the fish.

Soft plastics

• Swim shads: a soft-plastic baitfish on a weighted head swims like a real fish on a straight retrieve, and you can also jig it. Match its length to the bait the fish are eating and its weight to the depth they're feeding at.
• Soft-plastic eels and slim stickbaits: fished on a jig head or weighted hook, they imitate eels and sand eels. A jig head and soft plastic, barely moved, is also the best way to catch cold winter holdovers.

Trolling lures

When there are no birds, no breaking fish and nothing on the sonar, trolling covers water until you find them.

• Tube-and-worm: a long rubber tube with a worm (or scented plastic worm) on the hook, trolled slowly, about 2 mph adjusted for current. It works in a few feet of water in spring and, with an egg sinker, 20 feet down or more in summer.
• Bunker spoons: big flashing spoons that look like adult menhaden. They're a big-fish lure and need wire line or leadcore to get down.
• Umbrella and spreader rigs: several soft baits on wire arms that look like a small school of bait. They catch numbers of fish, especially when bass are tightly grouped.
• Deep-diving plugs: simple and effective for mid-size fish.

Most trolling is done at about 2.5 to 3 knots; tube-and-worm goes slower. White and chartreuse are the standard colors.

Which lure when

Situation	Start with
Birds working, fish breaking on top	Popper or metal cast to the edge of the blitz
Fish marked deep, nothing on top	Metal jig or swim shad near the bottom
Calm beach at night	Floating minnow plug or needlefish, slow
Rough surf at night	Bottle plug or darter
Bass on big bunker	Metal-lip surface swimmer; troll a bunker spoon
Bass on sand eels	Slim metal jig, soft-plastic eel, needlefish
Inlets and rips	Bucktail heavy enough to reach the fish
Cold water, winter holdovers	Small soft plastic on a jig head, barely moving
No signs at all	Troll to find them

Working a blitz

When you find bass busting bait on top, cast to the edges of the commotion, not the middle. A lure that looks like a straggler on the outside gets eaten first, and you won't scatter the school. From a boat, never run through the middle of a blitz; come in from up-current and drift down on it. And watch your topwater plugs under diving birds: terns and gulls grab them too. Metal is the safer choice there. If the surface feed breaks up, drop a jig to the bottom. Bigger fish often stay below, picking up what the rest left behind.

Building your bag

For the surf: bucktails from 3/4 to 2 ounces with strips, a couple of 2-ounce pencil poppers, two 6-inch floating minnow plugs, and casting spoons from 1 to 2 ounces. Add a bottle plug and a 6-inch sinking needlefish if you'll fish rough water at night. From a boat, carry the same lures but swap the spoons for metal jigs of 2 to 6 ounces. White and natural colors catch fish everywhere. Plastic plugs survive bluefish teeth better than wooden ones.

For the outfits to throw them on, see Setting Up Tackle for Striped Bass.