November 9, 2009
Striper Fishing With Live Bait
The East coast is rich in big stripers and you can use a variety of tackle and a variety of methods to catch them. From May when the ice is finally out and the winter chill is gone until November when icing becomes problematic on the boat’s deck, bass in excess of sixty pounds can be had late at night or in broad daylight. If you have access to standard baits from New England such as hickory shad, cup, menhaden (porgy and bunker is another common name) or eels, you can hook your live bait to a three-way rig and wait for striped bass that can be longer than 40 inches!
How often can you honestly say that anyone strong enough – from a child to your grandmother – to land one of these monsters can have a great day fishing! Some of the heaviest bass from 55 to 78 lbs have been caught in New England. Valiant Rock, Sugar Reef, Plum Gut and the Sluiceway have all bragged about stripers in the weight range of 55-70 lbs while Al McReynolds landed a 78 lb striper at a jetty in New Jersey using a 3-way rig. The next big catch was made at Montauk Point and the proud fisherman that day was Captain Rod Rochetta who was also using a three-way rig. These rigs have made bass fishing so simple that with a few pointers, anyone can land a great fish once you find out where they like to be.
A 3-way jig is actually very simple. The jig gets its name from its starting point: a 3-way swivel. One swivel goes toward your main line, obviously. The second is designed as a dropper loop (which is exactly what it sounds like: a piece of line with a loop used to attach a heavy enough lead sinker to bounce on the bottom in a running tide). In some cases, a dropper loop needs a sinker that weighs as little as 4 to 6 ounces, while other rips and reefs may call for 16 to 20 ounces to keep your bait in the strike zone during your drift. Swivel three holds a 4 to 5 foot length of fluorocarbon leader material. 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.
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.
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.
There are many reels on the market which are great for fishing. Some of the more popular ones include; Shimano Calcutta and BG90.
Filed under Fly Fishing Vest by Brian