Can't get them to bite!!!

[D-Man54]

My dad and I have just gotten into the live bait for stipers just recently. We are using brood minnows but we are not having any luck. We are doing everything that we have read. We just cannot get the fish to bite. We have been in tons of fish and cannot get so much as a hit. The other day we put in at LBS and ran all the way to point 11 looking for them. We cannot get them to hit top either,  that is what we had luck with last year.

[Quillback]

I can only tell you what I observed in the Indian creek area, but it appeared to me that the stripers were keyed on very small, 1-2" shad.  There's lots of shad, but they aren't balled up, they are scattered and all over the place.  I could certainly be wrong, but if I was going to chase them again using minnows, I might downsize (smaller minnows than brooders), and fish them only a few feet deep under a float.  I would also try small spoons like a Kastmaster, and maybe small marabou jigs or grubs on a ball head.  The fish are very spooky in that clear water, you have to be stealthy, if I was trolling I'd have my baits way back behind the boat.