Advice For Catching Stripers And Hybrids?

[Hunter91]

About a month ago I was visiting relatives in Louisiana and of course we had to do some bass fishing. We fished a small lake and found the Hybrids and Stripers schooling. Very awesome sight of several acres of Stripers busting shad! We caught about 60 in the 3-5lb range over three days of fishing. We caught them on wakebaits, flukes, rattle traps and white swimming minnows. Just not as many as it seemed we should for the way they were busting. I very seldom catch or fish for stripers, mostly by accident while bass or walleye fishing. My question for some of you who fish for them frequently. Do you have some suggestions on baits for these schoolers and do bigger stripers tend to hang below the schoolers like largemouth?

I have another trip scheduled down there the weekend after the 4th and have heard they are still schooling early mornings.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[Bird Watcher]

I'm a big believer in live bait if you can get it. I think they get so keyed in on the baitfish they are chasing that it's really hard to get them to look at any type of artificial when they are schooling like that. Don't get me wrong, art's will catch them, but nothing like bait. As far as the larger fish below, I think that's true sometimes, but other times I've seen 10#+ hybrids completely breach chasing shad out of the water. I think it all depends on the day.

A lot of guys have told me to try a rig consisting of a popping cork with a streamer 12-20"s below when they are like that. I think it's called a "gollywhomper" rig or "sandbass rig" or something like that. I haven't tried it yet because I haven't seen that type of surfacing where I fish in about a month or so, but some guys that really know how to catch them told me to try that.

[Feathers and Fins]

When they are on top-water like that I love throwing Pop'Rs or a splash bubble set-up like bird watcher was talking about. For Surface fish get one of the clear plastic Bobbers you can fill with water to add weight to it... Instead of adding water add shotgun shell shot you want to tie about 3 to 5 ft of leader behind it and then use a White fly streamer. Cast it out past the boiling fish and reel fast twitching the rod to create a spalsh. Very deadly set-up for surface fish. But the best possible is live bait hands down no exceptions.

[parsonsles87]

try a zara spook. yellow or pearl. these are deadly at daylight and dark. also try dragging a gulp minnnow (yellow or smelt not watermelon pearl) through the school very slow. if there are any bigger ones below the school they will key in on that minnow. and like the other guys said live bait. i like to use just the bait though. letting the minnow or shad swim freely tends to be more effective for me

[Hunter91]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will give them a try and report back.