How To: Jiggin’ Troll in the Rips for Nantucket Sound Stripers
Location: Rips of Nantucket Sound including Middle Ground, L’Hommedieu, Succonnessett and the Monomoy Shoals
Equipment: Lead core trolling setup. Capt. Mike’s lead core trolling setup consists of an Avet reel, a 5’6″ 15-30lb class stand up tuna rod from Bass Pro Shops, and 27# Tuf-Line MicroLead Lead Core.
Approach: Position your boat perpendicular with the rip on the smooth side to start, but as you work your way down, swing the stern of the boat towards the rip so that your trolled baits swing over into the rougher water.
Another tip is to find crescent-shaped indents in the rip and target those areas heavily. Small baitfish will ball up there a little more densely than other areas of the rip, making it a hotspot for stripers & blues. Stripers will sometimes hang out in the corners of these crescents, so make sure to troll your bait right over that area.
Bait Selection: 10″ Hogy Originals rigged weedless with weighted swimbait hooks are the preferred bait for the technique. The rips of Nantucket Sound can get extremely weedy from time to time and by dipping the very end of the hook back into the softbait, you will avoid getting caught up with a weed monster.
As far as color selection goes, try and match your lure with the color of the bait in the area. For example, if there are squid around, go with a pink coloration.
Technique: Most of these rips will hold fish in very shallow water, so you don’t need to let out a lot of line. For example, at Middle Ground, Capt. Mike usually only lets out 4 or 5 colors.
Make sure to continuously jig the bait with short twitches while in gear. If you feel a hit on your lure, make sure to set the hook with another short jig on the rod.
