Do stripers like less action?

Hey, I've been told, and have some evidence to support it, that stripers like lures with less action.

they also seem to like lures with noise.

the folks that add a white worm to a broken back rebel, well the worm makes it dive shallower and tightens the action.

Bill took a hook off his rogue and tied with no loop, plus added a bucktail triple. these would combine to lessen the action of this lure.

chuckE trolled a bucktail. those just pretty much go straight through the water.

a zoom fluke works at mendo.

a deceiver fly works.

a rattle-trap has a tight wiggle and not a ton of action.

plastic eels and worms threaded on hooks produce.

So I'm sure that at times a striper wants a lure with more action, but in general, when
fishing for schoolie class stripers, it seems they want a lure without a ton of action,
and they like live bait, and maybe dead bait too.

anybody got any comments on this aspect of stripers?

I know steveS had good luck once with his x-rap. did he fish it with the slashing action,
or just a straight retrieve?

anyway, love to hear from the striper catchers on this aspect of using lures for stripers.

i agree, last year i spent alot of time at oyster point piers and guys huffing dead chovies would catch them when they were there. i would use a throw net catch fresh chovies and shiners and they guys using frozen chovies caught fish while my live shiner would just sit there untouched, i think there LAZY and would prefer a bait that looks like they dont have to work to hard to catch, maybe the more action a lure has makes them think its gonna be harder to catch, also when i plug for them in the bay it seems hair raisers and swim baits do a lot better then some of the shad raps and jerk baits people try, just my opinion

I caught them with the rattletrap and with hairraisers trolling in SF/San pablo Bay.

Allen

(also with live shiners)

I think less action...i troll and cast that x-rap straight no slash.
Still the best producing lure i have is this absolutely BEAT blue/white yozuri crystal minnow (added a hairtail) - that thing has basically no action, just a lazy wobble.
The hairraisers, I almost always cut the worm tail down a bit-- which means less action, and a tighter wiggle.
The only exception is this PET spoon....that thing wobbles like crazy, but it has to be trolled and cast pretty slow.  It doesn't work often, but when nothing else seems to work then that thing does..

Where did I hear that one before? 

I know of another exception. That is the good old spooks. They wabble like mad but are irresistible to the stripers since they hit it over and over until they get hooked. I guess the loud noises it makes is what makes them work.

i think there LAZY and would prefer a bait that looks like they dont have to work to hard to catch, maybe the more action a lure has makes them think its gonna be harder to catch

I really don't think so because you could troll a hairraiser as fast as you can and the striped bass will hit it.

Dude you outed the secret lure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Yeah all the schoolies I have caught go after the low action stickbaits.

I think when any predator sees an easy meal they will take it. Least amount of energy expended for the most amount of protein.
It might seem that stripers prefer the easy meal that's how they get big, but I think most of us fish for them when they aren't actively feeding. I grew up fishing stripers in the bay and delta and we rarely fished for them in the daytime. They do most of their feeding at night  and the best lures had a lot of action broken back rebels and spooks were the lures of choice. But I think it's all relative most of the guys in the delta fish bullheads and mudsuckers which don't move around a lot but the best baits are shad and bluegills which are pretty flashy.  During the day we would troll a spreader with a jig on one leg and a pet spoon with a white or yellow pork rind trailer on the other, over 90% of the fish were caught on the pet spoon which has a lot of action so that sorta disproves the low action theory.

 

steves, thanks for the tip on the x-rap. mickfish, I do think it is pretty confusing picking lures for these guys.

first time I went to the forebay, I trolled something white, a lazy ike, a banana-type plug. no hits. I trolled a broken back fast-trac rebel (no noise, jointed) and only got a LMB. I also trolled a F-7 and x-rap and got no hits.

last time I try the non-jointed secret stickbait with a rattle and bucktail treble and get the targetted fish pretty quick, but only one before the wind came up and I started trying some other things. however, it did work!

got me to wondering what lures might work well there.  seems like the f-7 should have worked, maybe too small,
no rattle. the xrap should work.

Where did I hear that one before? 

I know of another exception. That is the good old spooks. They wabble like mad but are irresistible to the stripers since they hit it over and over until they get hooked. I guess the loud noises it makes is what makes them work.

compa, I always learn something when I fish with you!

i wouldnt really say stripers like less action because surf fishing in pacifica ive had then blow up on a pencil popper when i was working it to turn almost 180 degrees and splashing it like crazy on the surface

pencil poppers and spooks are much slower moving than cranks and hair raisers. And they make a lot more noise. I think that's why the surface plucks work even though they have a good action. It would be interesting if someone tried slow trolling a crank bait (without the tail) and see if that works.

here's one for the loud category...

when the water is cloudy around here- like early spring around SR, i've got 'em on a little white spinnerbait rigged with a worm tail.  i swore i'd never leak that one...

I've been fishing stripers in Marin area for years and I either use flies or jigs that I tie up myself. Neither of these has a built-in action, they respond to the way you retrieve them. I put rattles in many of my flies and all of my jigs and so when I retrieve them I try to 'work it' and not just crank it back. The water around here is usually cloudy and so anything that gets them looking in the direction of the lure and gets their attention before they even see it has to be a plus. So, I think sound is good. The jigs I make,( I call them "Rattle Rabbits"), are made with rabbit strips and have a really seductive motion in the water, but not an 'action' per se. The stripers seem to like them.

I like those rattle rabbits. maybe it makes sense to add rattles to a lot of hair-raiser style jigs?