Rip Fishing for Striped Bass from Shore
Shoreline rips that occur around structure, such as points, are often great spots to find big fish on light tackle close to the beach. The best shoreline rips have some sort of mix or combination of deep areas, including holes, drop offs, rocks, boulders and deep basins. Moving water means confused bait so blind casting in an organized manner is the ticket.
Approach: Fan cast and fish the swing through a 45 degree strike zone
Tide: Often, one tide lays up better than the other but the peak fishing time would be 45 minutes before, after or during tidal movement.
“If I Had Just One” with Capt. Mike Hogan
LOCATION: Cape Cod
TARGETED SPECIES: Striped Bass
LURE: 5″ Hogy Charter Grade Slider
“I would grab the 5″ Hogy Charter Grade Slider.”
- PROFILE: This 5″ Hogy Charter Grade Slider is the perfect size to match herring and bunker. It’s both a big little and a little big bait and its size and profile are very versatile in terms of matching the hatch.
- WEIGHT: The Hogy Charter Grade Slider is thru-wired for big fish capabilities and features fish attracting rattles. The rattles are oriented toward the back for extra casting distance. At 1.5oz you can cast the Hogy Slider on a wide range of outfits from medium to medium heavy power. The bait is calibrated for a horizontal “neutral” decent. This creates a very natural rendition of a “stunned” bait fish, also allowing you to cover multiple levels of the water column.
- SWIMMING: Don’t be fooled by the lack of a swimming bill! This lure swims like a champ! Just keep your tip at a 45-degree angle and reel. If the rip is over 1-knots, fishing the slider on a “modified dead drift” by casting up tide and reeling “just” fast enough to keep the lure in the strike zone. This natural, super slow technique has paid off with countless of fatties for me.
Steps:
- Begin your first series of casts well above the rip and close.
- As you drop, extend your casts further.
- As you extend your casts, let your bait sink deeper.
Another great lure for this type of situation, and any open water/open beach situation, is the Hogy Peanut Bunker Jig, especially when targeting albies.
Casting Tip for Beginners with John Skinner
LOCATION: Rips/Open Beach/Shore Fishing
LURE: Peanut Bunker Jig
- A fast retrieve speed is mandatory with this lure. A lot of the time, false albacore will be mixed in with a school of bluefish but to call them out of the school, reel as fast as you can to get the albies alone and avoid the bluefish.
- The Peanut Bunker Jig is 1oz, where as the Heavy Minnow Jig is 1.5oz. The Peanut Bunker Jig tends to skip on the surface more than the Heavy Minnow Jig, producing a “skippy retrieve” that albies can’t resist. It has out-performed all of the other top water lures I have tried so far.
- The Peanut Bunker Jig has a great casting distance and skips easily on the surface in flat water because of its somewhat flatter profile as compared to the Heavy Minnow Jig which is better for choppy water and rough conditions.