bass and blues

Question
whats the best bait/lure for stripers/blues during the run.  i fish asbury park, nj.

and also when chumming its better to stay anchored right.

im 14 any other tips would be greatly appreciated.
                    -thanks scott price

Answer
Hi Scott:

I will try to answer both your questions at the same time in general terms.  To get into specific details would result in me writing an entire book.

Choosing the best bait or lures for salt water fish is very similar to what fly fishermen do in fresh water.  They use the term "match the hatch" which simply means to select a fly pattern that most closely represents the particular live insects that are being eaten by the trout.  In the same manner, the best bait or lure for stripers, blues, weakfish, fluke or any other salt water species is to use the same bait as the fish are finding on their own.  

I fish along the south shore of LI, NY which is not much different than where you are.  Let me use fluke (summer flounder) to illustrate.  When the fish first arrive in the bays during early May, they are accustomed to eating baitfish such as spearing and sandeels because these are the natural forage they have been feeding on during their inshore migration.  So these are the most effective baits.  After a while in the bays, they change their preferences to inshore foods such as killies and grass shrimp.  As such, the best baits in the middle of summer are live killies.  Yet, at the same time, if you fish fluke in the ocean, the killies are never a preferred bait because the fluke there do not see killies but instead continue feeding on the ocean baitfish such as the sandeels and spearing.  Toward the end of the summer and into the fall, the fluke start feeding upon baby bluefish (snappers) and small bunker (peanuts) which were not around in the spring or early summer.  So now the best choices become these species.

Whether you choose to use natural baits or lures, just go with whatever matches the food the fish are feeding on at that time.  Yea, I know you caught a fluke on a spearing in the fall, and a killie in the spring, and of course there are always instances where there will be exceptions.  But in the long run, you will trigger much more feeding interest if you offer them what that are naturally finding in their environment.  

Keep in mind that certain species have preferences from among the available natural baits.  Though winter flounder and fluke often swim in the same water during May and June, you will almost never catch fluke on typical flounder baits such as worms, clams or mussels, and in the same way never catch flounder on spearing, squid, sandeels or killies.  

You are fortunate to be fishing during a time when there is an abundance of striped bass.  Clams and worms work best for bass during the spring and early summer.  Then as the baby snappers and bunker become abundant, these become the best baits.  There are artificial worms, that do catch some fish in the spring, but as good as they may be, they do not look or taste as good to striped bass and weakfish as the real thing does.  But in the fall, various plugs and other artificials that represent baitfish do catch many fish.  I think this is due to the faster action on these fishlike lures that does not give the bass and weaks a chance to look it over.  

You and I cannot determine what a fish wants to eat.  They make that choice, and it is up to us to figure out what they want.  

Chumming is almost always done from an anchored boat.  The only excetion would be shark fishing miles off the beach where it is possible to have one continuous drift for the entire day.

I know this does not completely tell you everything you would like to know, but I hope it is a start.  It takes years and years of experience, and even then you will never know everything.  If you ever meet a fisherman who tells you he knows it all, I assure you that you are speaking to someone who probably knows less than you do.  I have been fishing since before you were born and still keep an open mind trying to learn each time I go fishing.  If you adopt that attitude, you will also get better and better at catching whatever you are seeking.

If you would like to follow this up with specific questions, I would be glad to share my experience with you.  Just try to limit it to precisely what you intend to do, how, where and such.  I appreciate your enthusiasm and hope you realize that broad general questions are very difficult to answer.  

-Rich