With the recent developments of fish finding technology, this technique is becoming more and more popular. In this technique, you are literally cruising around looking for targets to drop on. Search and drop is the most tactical variation of jigging in that the captain and crew work hand in hand ready to coordinate the drop. Each angler is poised, and ready for the drop at a moments notice. This is a handy skill to have mastered when there are fish in the area that are hesitant to eat. The more time spent with the lures directly in front of their noses, the more likely you are to hook up.

Steps:

1. Identify an active area.
2. Find a happy cruising speed, maybe around 8 knots for searching
3. Have anglers holding their rods at all times, ready to free spook their lure at a moments notice.
4. Along with watching the electronics, constantly look for changes in the water and be ready to cast at any water that looks “pushed” or otherwise altered.

Benefits:

1. Pin-point finicky fish.
2. Steady RPM’s will not spook fish.
3. You’re more able to cover ground while studying top-water activity and keeping your eyes glued to the fish finder.

Notes: Although I prefer to either target stripers I can see on the surface, mark down below or use structure as a target to focus on, I do find myself blind casting occasionally in big open water.

When: This situation usually occurs just after or just before large feeds that have been in the area or at slack tide when the bait has scattered. Often this situation occurs early in the morning or on low light days.

Go-To Lures: I like large Charter Grade swimming plugs, poppers, sliders and squids that make a lot of noise. The larger the size or commotion, the wider you extend your target range. I also like simple, highly visible or contrasting colors like glow, orange or black. The lure needs to be big for 2 reasons. 1) It needs to be large enough for a striper to see it from as far as 40’ away and 2) It needs to be big enough for a large striper to justify the effort required to intercept or attack it.

Notes: Although I prefer to either target stripers I can see on the surface, mark down below or use structure as a target to focus on, I do find myself blind casting occasionally in big open water.

When: This situation usually occurs just after or just before large feeds that have been in the area or at slack tide when the bait has scattered. Often this situation occurs early in the morning or on low light days.

Go-To Lures: I like large Charter Grade swimming plugs, poppers, sliders and squids that make a lot of noise. The larger the size or commotion, the wider you extend your target range. I also like simple, highly visible or contrasting colors like glow, orange or black. The lure needs to be big for 2 reasons. 1) It needs to be large enough for a striper to see it from as far as 40’ away and 2) It needs to be big enough for a large striper to justify the effort required to intercept or attack it.

When striped bass are keyed in on squid, you’re going to want something flashy and noisy to cause a lot of commotion and draw these fish to the surface, like the Hogy Charter Grade Squid Plug. The beauty of these plugs is that they have the durability to allow you to catch multiple smaller fish without having to put new soft plastics on the hooks. They are basically the bulletproof version of the softbaits, as Capt. Mike would put it.

Fishing the Rip

Step One: Begin by casting back into the rip (remember your boat positioning as mentioned above)

Step Two: Twitch the rod, make the lure dance in the waves.; first, second or third wave (diagram above). This will simulate a fleeing squid skipping, dancing and darting on the surface.

Step Three: In this situation, both Capt. Lundholm and Capt. Hogan had fish on but if it doesn’t work as easily for you, cast and repeat until you need to set up your drift again.

“This is a very easy technique if you have little kids on the boat or inexperienced anglers,” Capt. Mike said. “Really almost anyone can do it by twitching the rod.”

Notes: Fishing rips is simply a variation of fishing submerged structure and also very similar to fly fishing for trout in a fly stream. In a rip line caused by a sand bar, schools of baitfish are getting swept by the tide over the sand bar or reef and made vulnerable by the commotion of the rip. Stripers who like to make eating as easy as possible, will lay right on or behind that line in ambush, picking off unsuspecting prey.

When: You need strong tide to make a rip, so obviously the peak stages of the tide are best. Rips often form in shallower areas where the water warms more quickly, which can be a benefit in the cooler months of the spring and fall.

Go-To Lures: Matching the hatch (as always) is key. In New England, hot rip fishing is often associated with squid runs and nothing beats an unweighted or lightly weighted soft plastic in terms of imitating a squid. A softbait that can be rigged weedless such as a 10” Hogy Original on a Swimbait Hook is ideal because rips often get weedy from the tide pushing weeds and debris that is stirred up. Anglers will also through pink, bone and amber top-water baits.

Method and Approach: Stem the tide with your boat just in gear with enough thrust so as to just hold your position. Pick a good spot in the rip where a u-shaped gully with peaks on either side of it have formed. Now cast perpendicularly to to 30 degrees up tide. Once the lure hits the water, your focus is to get control of the line with minimal slack between you and your lure. Now let current move the bait toward the stripers that are waiting in ambush. While the bait is drifting down tide impart action in the lure and your reeling is more for eliminating slack than to propel the lure forward. If you time it perfectly, the lure will start swinging into the rip and directly behind your boat just at or behind the rip line.

Starting in late June and early July, large schools of striped bass migrate more heavily into the shoals just off the coast of Monomoy. There are miles upon miles of rips in the area, including Handkerchief, Bearse’s, and Stone Horse Shoals. It can be intimidating at first to figure out where to begin fishing this large area, so here are a few tips to help you catch striped bass (and bluefish) by casting jigs and softbaits into the rips using light-tackle outfits. For more on the area, check out our Monomoy Shoals spot profile.

Recommended Outfit: 7′ Shimano Terez Rod with a Shimano Saragossa SW 5000 reel. This light tackle outfit will give you extra action when you twitch your baits and extra sensitivity when feeling the initial strike. Plus, its a blast when you inevitably hook a 30+” striper or 8+ pound bluefish in this area.

Technique: The name of the game here is bouncing around from rip to rip until you find the one that’s holding the most life. The idea is to hang with the engine running right after the first couple waves of the rip or just in front in the slick water. Once your boat is in position, cast up tide and twitch the bait as it tumbles back through the rip. This diagram should help:

1. Squid and Sand Eels: A 7″ or 9″ Hogy Pro Tail Eel in pink would work best for this situation. The weight will depend on the current speed but I would do as low as 1.5oz in 20 feet of water and as heavy as 5oz in 60+ feet of water. The Hogy Sand Eel Jig and the Slappy Jiggin’ Eel will also do the trick.
2. Herring: It’s hard to beat the 6.5″ Hogy Pro Tail Paddle, as far as a herring imitation goes. White, blue and silver are the most popular colors for herring imitations.

This June morning, they were chasing mostly squid but as the sky lit up, the mackerel began to appear and the squid fishing slowed down. Switching over to the 2oz. Hogy Pro Tail Paddle, a common lure that Capt. Lundholm uses, he noted that when the squid are penned up on the surface, he’ll fish the unweighted 10” Hogy Originals.

“The fish right now are down a little bit,” Lundholm said. “They were mid-water column and what I did to work this Pro Tail was casting it out and letting it sink about a 20 count.”

This method will let the lure sink down in the water column and it can be worked back up to the surface with various retrieval speeds (fast, medium, slow, twitchy).

Lifting a decent sized bass over the rail of the boat, Lundholm noted how they are feeding heavily on squid and mackerel as their bellies are over extended and some cough up left over chunks of bait fish.

“Hopefully this bait will keep these fish here and we’ll have some good fishing for a bit,” Lundholm said as he released the fish.

One thing that most fisherman love about the Hogy Pro Tail Paddle is its durability. Common amongst many bass anglers, they find that the sandpaper mouths of striped bass, small and large alike, don’t tear up the soft plastic as quickly as some other baits they have used, allowing it to be used time after time on recreational, commercial and chartered fishing trips.

Easy instructions from the Salty Cape Crew with Capt. Cullen Lundholm on how to target Mackerel using the Hogy Diesel Mack Sabiki Rig. Best way to catch your own fresh live bait for striper & tuna fishing on Cape Cod.