To the forum:- I've been fishing stripers about 15 years now, and wanted to expand my techniques. Currently my most favored is whole bait, drifting. I want to try very early morning (sunrise)casting lures, either wood or plastic, and don't know what to purchase for rods, reels, line, or terminal lures. I'm not into feathers, and would like to spend some early AM time before the crowds get on the Merrimack R or Piscataqua R, and the boat traffic spooks the fish.

I've read about sluggos, shads, and tubes. But I don't know where to go for one stop shopping and advise. Right now I'm rigged with Penn rods, both spin and cast, 7' 1 piece L-M action, with Shimano 6500 on the spin and Penn 320's on the casting.

The whole array of discussions on lures seems mind boggling, and I would like some sound advise on a set up for under say $200, including rod reel and a basic array of lures. Also, I'm in NH, where is the closest 1 stop shop with sound advise and reasonable prices. Thank you all for your input.

Check out the new Tica rods, MikeCC has em in his shop.

captain, where abouts in new hampshire, i do most if not all of my saltwater fishing there due to my grand parents house in Rye. I go up there for practically the whole summer. I know alot of spots along the whole new hampshire shoreline (beaches, bridges, jetties). narrow your questions down a little bit so i can give ya some pointers for fishing new hampshire.

Anthony

Welcome to S-B!

I'm on the north shore, but have gone to Kay's Surfland in Plum Island and would recommend them as the best I know of close to the NH border. Well stocked and knowledgible help.
Short of that, I don't know. Check out Mikes website! (gotta plug sponsors ya know!!!)

Care to share some local knowledge about the Merrimack and other spots you know up that way?

Anthony- I thought my post was fairly specific. If not, here goes.

I live in Rockingham County, 35 miles from the beach. I have excellent success in catching stripers. From the Piscataqua to the Merrimack, mostly the latter, as IMO the ramps in NH are a pain.

What I'm trying to accomplish with my request is to get some basic info on throwing wood or plastic, just to expand my fishing horizons. My current set-ups are for drifting live bait. I just would like to try something different on occasion. I'm retired, so every day is Saturday, but at my age I was seeking information to shorten the learning curve.

So I'm looking for opinions and advice and recommended basic set-ups. But I'm not talking about strolling at night with a 9-12'surf rod either. Just a set up to do some comfortable early morning casting from my boat.

Hi Capt. Pole-luck, A few suggestion for that type of fishing would be. Get a nice light outfit, you can purchase a decent 7' Penn Power graph rod, M-h Action and put a shimano spyrex 4000 on it. Use 10 -12 lb test berkly big game or fire line 14lb but if you are going to use any braided line always put a little mono backing on the reel 1st. You can purchase this outfit for about $110 and can get it at Walmart which would be your cheapest bet if you are near one.

As for lures, keep it simple, 3/4 oz Chrome creek chub popper and Gag's poppers are great for early morning. In the early spring shads are your best bet. We use pearl only as the bottom of every bait fish is white!!! We use a 3/8 oz jig head and we use 4 " Queen coccaho shad which are pissa and can't be beat. If you like to use a twitch bait, check out Ledgerunner baits, they are also great and catch alot of bass. We sell the coccaho shads for $3 a dozen and jigs are .50 cents each and we can mail them out if you are interested PM me, not trying to give you a sales pitch it is just that they are hard to find. Small metals like crippled herring or cast master also work well. If you have any more questions just let me know. Hope this helps!!!!

i'm sorry pole luck, i must have misunderstood you, well all my fishing is from the surf so i guess i am not of much help with your boat fishing. For plugs i like to use a blue/white with sparkle atom popper, it imitates a herring. Its a nice plug, have caught many schoolies and some upper size fish with it. i am mainly a bait kinda guy with the occasional plug.

Anthony

Nightfighter- Tried sending you a PM. Board said your box is full so I could not send. I can give you some pretty fair advice on fishing the Merrimack. First rule would be to forget weekends after Memorial day as boat traffic can only be mildly described as a ZOO. July- August really life threatening on weekends....Send another PM if you wish, after your box is cleaned out.

Why not use the spin setup you have to get started? (not that you can ever have too many rods and reels)

If your rod is a ML, you shouldn't have a problem tossing light weight plugs and rubber. You could probably get started with some Bombers, Mambos, Atom poppers, Yozuri crystal minnows. There's a lot of great info on various types of wooden plugs in this forum and it's fairly easy to search.

If you are looking for rubber, read this. http://www.ledgerunnerbaits.com/striper.htm

Surfland is a good bet for tackle and advice. As far as shops in NH, I haven't found many away from the coast that are worth getting advice from. You may want to check out Suds 'n Soda in Greenland If you are heading to the Piscataqua. I've gotten eels and tackle there but haven't asked for any advice.

I do quite a bit of fishing on the Piscatque, mostly at night using eels. But during the day I've found the following very affective:

Gag's Mambo Minnow, 5" and 7", Olive or black backs/ silver bottom
Cordell red fins, 5", smoky
Rubber shad, 4" and 6", green or Black back with cream bottom
Smiling bill jigs, 1 oz to 3 oz, white with a curly tail
Graves tin, 1/2 or to 2.5 oz

If your fishing in fairly fast current you may need heavier jigs. On the shad I use 1 oz to 2 oz heads.

Because of the current your often dealing with in the Piscatque and when your fishing from a boat you normally don't need long cast i use 20# mono on my spinning reel. If your jigging or using the 6 " shad I would use 50# spiderwire stealth with a 10' 30# mono leader on a casting reel.

As far as local shops, Surfland on Plum Island is always a good bet. I know they carry everything listed above. They are also very helpful and knowledgeable.

MAMBO MINNOWS are good in the merrimack. olives, and black/purples.
so are soft plastics on small jigheads.
wood that pops works too.:) ;)

I wanted to thank everyone who replied to my post requesting spinning advice. So thank you very much....And Fisherwoman, I tried sending you a PM, but do not know whether you received it.

I'm also somewhat computer challenged, so my question is, does a PM come thru regular e-mail, or does it need to be accessed somehow from this board?? Thanks again

Hey Cap - the default is that the person will get an e-mail and a popup screen when logged on if receiveing a PM. But a lot of people do changed those settings in their profile / options...

John R- Yes, I'm stumbling around here not literally in the dark, you know what I mean, and tripped over some PM's sent to me. I think fishing is alot easier...