How-To — Striped Bass

 Metals come in all shapes and sizes. At Hogy, our lineup is no different. Each lure is designed to have a specific profile and action in the water. Each of our jigs can be cast or jigged. Here’s an outline on how to fish each of our metals. Hogy Heavy Minnow Jig Lure: The Hogy Heavy Minnow Jig is designed to imitate small baitfish and have a high weight density relative to its overall size making this lure a long distance caster. The best way to fish this lure is at a medium to fast lure retrieve. If on a boat,...

The Hogy Epoxy Jig Lure is a very unique lure in that it has the size and shape of a metal jig but is 1/3 the weight for its overall size. This means you can fish this lure in a number of different ways that you couldn’t fish a lead jig which would either be slow and deep or fast and just below the surface. The Hogy Epoxy Jig lure’s lightness will allow you to change action with rod-tip angle and speed very easily. Skippy Retrieve: This retrieve is probably the most exciting way to catch fish on the Hogy Epoxy...

Softbaits can be broken down into two categories: 1. Top Water: Top water softbaits are typically eel tail softbaits rigged with unweighted or lightly weighted Swimbait hooks and soft circle Hooks.2. Sub Surface: Sub Surface softbaits are typically rigged on jig heads or have the weights and hooks molded into the lure. Top Water: Unweighted and Lightly Weighted Softbaits Eel Tails In my opinion, unweighted eel tail style softbaits have the sexiest action of all lures on the market, making them worth the effort and extra time spent rigging, as well as learning to deal with the challenges of casting them...

There are really three components to consider when breaking down any striper fishing situation: timing, signs and the elements.   Timing: Like all good things in life, timing is everything but when fishing for stripers, thinking about “timing” can often tell you where they might be next. Often a “should have been here yesterday” situation can be pivoted to a “fish on” situation by extrapolating the conditions by understanding patterns from before, during and after the hot bite. Here’s how I look at timing. Seasonality: Seasonality will help you state the obvious. For starters early season’s low water temps come with the...

 The eel is perhaps the most iconic bait used when targeting stripers. Big soft plastics are the ultimate imitator of eels for big stripers and have been fooling trophy class fish for decades. Many anglers will tandem rig a large soft bait much the same way traditional anglers would tandem rig a dead eel but we find that if big softbaits are fished at a fast retrieve, the vast majority of strikes are targeted at the head. Hogy Top Imitators 10" Hogy Originals and 14" Hogy Originals fished on a Swimbait Hook: Fish this bait fast. The added action and speed...