Skinny plastic is now my go to lure for large stripers in the Bay as well as along the ocean. I'm talking using either a Hogy or a Slug Go. Yesterday evening I was fishing the Bay with a 6 inch Slug Go fished off a wooden float and took several hefty schoolies (see pic). My son, Ben, has been fishing along the oceanftont all week and has taken quite a few keepers up to 34 inches using a nine inch pink Hogy (that's right....PINK, a great daytime color). My friend Dennis used a black Slug Go to land a twenty pound fish in a mid Bay spot earlier in the week. While Cocahoes and Zoom flukes continue to catch their share of small schoolies, skinny plastic is the best lure to use right now to catch keepers, especially if you are fishing near dark.There are two main ways to fish these. You can fish them with a single swimhook impaled in the head of the lure. This works well with the larger plastic in a 7 1/2-12 inch size. Or, you can hook up a smaller one and fish it off a float (3 feet of mono from the float to the plastic). This works well with 6 inch plastic (see pic) and it also works well when casting into the wind. In both cases, twitch the rod tip vigorously on the retrieve to give the lure action.
Skinny plastic will far outfish a popper at this time of year. So, I have to ask myself, why are so many fishermen using a popper?