Striped bass feed on the tide and on the light. Whether you fish a rip, a bridge shadow line, a rocky point or a reservoir flat, the pattern is the same: find where current or structure concentrates bait, then get a lure to the depth the fish are holding at.
How to catch striped bass on D.O.A. lures
Bridges and shadow lines at night
Stripers hold on the dark side of a light line and eat what the current sweeps past. Cast up-tide, let the lure sink, and swing it through the seam with the current rather than cranking it back. Nearly every hit comes right where dark meets light. The Big One TerrorEyz at 4" gives a big-bait profile with a fall these fish key on; the standard TerrorEyz covers it when bait is smaller.
Rips, points and open water
Where current pushes over structure, a Bait Buster Deep Runner at 3/4 oz stays in the strike zone instead of skating over the top. In heavier water and for trolling, the Trolling at 7/8 oz and Super Heavy Trolling at 1.4 oz on a 6/0 hook get down and stay down. The single upright hook is a real advantage on big fish — it does not lever out the way a treble does during a long fight.
Casting soft plastics
On schoolies and blitz fish, a C.A.L. 4" Shad Tail or 5" Swim Bait on a long shank jig head is hard to beat — cast into the edge of the school, not the middle, and swim it back at a steady pace. When the fish are on sand eels, a C.A.L. 5.5" Jerk Bait rigged on a 7/0 needlepoint screw hook matches the long, thin profile better than anything else in the box.
Color
Match the bait. Pearl and Silver Mullet for bunker, herring and silversides; Rootbeer and Copper Crush over rock and in stained water; Nite Glow after dark. Bright chartreuse patterns earn their place when a river is running dirty.
Matching the hatch by size
Striped bass will refuse a lure that is the wrong size far more often than one that is the wrong color. If they are pushing tiny bait and ignoring you, drop to the Tiny TerrorEyz before you change anything else.
