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How to Fish Glide Baits for BIG Stripers

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Glide Baits have become extremely popular in recent years. And with good reason: They flat-out catch fish!

They got their start in the world of big bass fishing but striper anglers quickly realized that glide baits were also the ticket for targeting big linesides.

Here are some tips for catching stripers on these deadly lures:

How to Pick a Glide Bait

There are so many companies out there that make quality gliders that it can be a bit overwhelming to try to pick a few out. So, let’s take a look at a few things down here and try to narrow it down a bit.

First off, in my experience, two-piece baits work way better than the multi-segmented kind.

As far as size goes, it really depends on what your goals are. If your only goal is trophy fish, consider going with one of the big 9, 10- or 12-inch baits like the Megabass I Slide 262T Glide,

Megabass I Slide 262T

 

or the even larger Gan Craft Jointed Claw Super Magnum 303.

Gan Craft Jointed Claw Super Magnum 303

These are expensive baits and you won’t get a ton of bites on them, but when you do, chances are they will be really big fish!

 

If you’d rather go a little less expensive, the River2Sea S-Waver 200 is a good bait for under $50.

River2Sea S-Waver

I generally run smaller gliders so I can catch the non-trophies as well. The good news is, big stripers will also munch these baits so you aren’t taking yourself out of the big fish game by using them.

The sky’s the limit here on what you want to spend. Generally, the more you pay the more refined the bait is but that’s not always the case. Some companies put out lesser baits and charge a premium just try to get get in on the action.

If you don’t mind spending the cash, the 5.5″ Gan Craft Jointed Claw Kai 148 (around $65) is deadly…

Glide Baits

Gan Craft Jointed Claw Kai 148

The River2Sea S-Waver in the 168 size is an excellent bait in the $20 range. Also in the less expensive but still effective range is the the Savage Gear Glide Swimmer in either the 5 1/4″ or 6 1/2″ sizes.

Savage Gear Glide Swimmer

Regardless of the bait you choose, be sure that your glider rides balanced in the water. What I mean by that is it shouldn’t be nose or tail heavy and able to stand ups straight without rolling over on its side.

Customization
Some baits come with hooks that clearly weren’t designed to handle big stripers so you may have to change them out to stouter models. The trick is to make sure you don’t adversely affect the lure’s action by adding too much weight. On some lures, I’ll add a second split ring between the lure and the hook to give the treble the ability to rotate nearly 360 degrees — this helps reduce a big fish’s ability to use leverage to twist the hooks out.

If a bait seems to be riding a little to shallow, I will also sometimes add a split-ring and barrel swivel to the nose to give it a little more weight forward attitude.

Glide Bait Colors
The best color for a glide bait is pretty subjective. It depends a lot on water clarity, weather and natural forage. My top three favorites are rainbow trout, bone and white or silver with chartreuse. But again, every water is going to be slightly different. Start with finding out what they main food source is and then expand from there.

How to Fish a Glide Bait

Everyone has their own style for fishing these baits, but for me I find I do best when is all the action is imparted with the reel…not the rod. After the lure hits the water, I may let it sink a bit and then, with the rod tip pointed down, I’ll start retrieving it. Some days, the fish like a straight slow and steady retrieve. When you slow grind the lure in this way, it will slowly slide left and right. More often, however, I’ll also impart some stops and starts to the action as well.

By reeling a crank or two and then pausing, the bait will glide off to one side. Then another couple cranks and a pause will send it drifting off the other direction. Sometimes a steady grind punctuated by a couple speed cranks and a pause is the ticket.

You’ll just have to experiment with the action — the fish will tell you on a given day what the want. What you will find is if you go too dramatic with your stops and starts, the bait will sometimes do a U-turn and the hooks will wrap up in the line.

This is what happens when you do it right!

When you get bit, the key is to stay focused and reel into the fish. If you make a quick haymaker, tuna-tosser hookset, you’ll often jerk the bait away from the striper. Some bites are crushing blows, but more often you’ll feel a quick “tick” or “thump” as the fish sucks the lure in.

Gearing Up

To ensure you impart the proper action to the lure, don’t wear yourself out on the casts and also capitalize on as many bites as possible, using the proper gear for Glide Bait fishing is really important.

Rods
Starting with rods, I like a stick that has enough oomph to cast heavy baits and fight big fish but it also needs a soft enough tip to ensure accurate casts. The top end also needs to be able to “give” when a striper sucks in the bait so she doesn’t feel much resistance.

I use to main rods for this technique: The Douglas LRS C764MF for smaller sized gliders and the Douglas LRS C784F for medium sized ones. You can also check out the Dobyns Rod Champion XP Swimbait series.

One bait rule of thumb to keep in mind is that of your lure twirls through the air like a helicopter, your rod is too still. You know your have the right action when it doesn’t spin through the air.

You get a lot of follows with glide baits…if the fish are following but not committing to the bait, change your retrieve.

Reels
There are a lot of quality choices out there as far as reels go. In general, I like a big 300-size reel with power handles and a solid drag. Some good choices are the Abu Garcia REVO Toro Beast and the Shimano Calcutta D Series In the more affordable range, some big glide bait fans love the Shimano Cardiff 300A for it’s slow retrieve rate.

Line
Line is a pretty subjective topic — everybody has their favorite. I have found that braid with a fluorocarbon leader works great on the smaller sized gliders but if you want to throw the mega-sized ones, straight fluorocarbon is the way to go. With those huge baits, you are likely to snap one off on the cast with braid and mono ends up getting too stretched out.

As far as line goes, I have been using 50- and 65-pound P-Line TCB 8 Teflon Coated 8-Carrier Braid with a 4- to 10-foot P-Line Shinsei on my smaller rigs and straight 20-pound Tactical Fluorocarbon

 

Five Must-Have Spring Striper Lures

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Spring striped bass season in Nor Cal is heating up! Here’s a list of my must-have lures to catch them with this spring…

Topwater

Of course may favorite way to catch stripers is up top on the surface with topwater plugs. The blowups are so fun…and I actually get some of my biggest fish of the season this way.

I think the easiest way to get started with throwing topwater is with pencil popper style plugs. They have a great wounded fish sputtering, splashing action that doesn’t take a whole lot of time to learn.

The Cotton Cordell Pencil Popper is a great topwater plug (I usually go with the 6″, 1-oz size) that won’t break the bank (about $9). I like the Bone and Silver/Black patterns best.

Cotton Cordell Pencil Popper

The only real drawback to these is they don’t feature wire-through construction so there’s a chance the plug can snap in half on a really big fish. It’s never happened to me before but I know some guys who have had it happen.

Another really sweet option (that’s reinforced on the inside) is the Duo Realis Pencil Popper (148 size) in Neo Pearl or Sardine. It’s a few bucks more, but you get that piece of mind that it will hold together if you hook the fish of a lifetime.

The Duo Realis Pencil Popper

Glide Baits

The glide bait revolution started several years ago and now it’s hard for me to get out on the water and not throw these things at least part of the day. The lazy “s-turn” action of these baits really turns stripers (and big bass) on!

One of my clients with a nice glide bait striper.

Grind these things slow with just the reel (not the rod tip) and then do a few really fast cranks and then pause. Mix up the action — the fish will tell you what the want on a given day.

There are some crazy expensive glide baits out there in the $200+ range but I don’t like throwing a lure like that at fish that can possibly take them away from me. :)

River2Sea S-Waver

So to that end, I fish a lot of River2Sea S-Wavers in the 168 and larger 200 sizes. The bone and rainbow trout are my two favorites.

Another good affordable bait for our local waters is the Savage Gear 3D Shine Glide Bait

The Chartreuse Shad is my top getter but I also like the Threadfin pattern. Generally I’ll go with the 5 1/4″ size when I’m looking for the most action. The jumbo 7 1/4-incher is the one if you want to maybe miss out on some smaller fish and just go hunting for the big bite.

Swim Baits

Tossing rubber swimbaits towards rocks, tules, sand bars and wood is a great way to search for spring stripers. There are lots of models out there and most work well enough. I’m a fan of softer baits with a square shaped tail on them such as the Big Hammer Swimbait Tails

Big Hammer Swimbait Tail


The 4″ and 5″ models are nice because they have enough profile to entice big stripers but are also not so big that the smaller fish won’t eat them. You can, however, size up if you are targeting only big fish. Great White is my top producer and sometimes, when the water’s off color, I’ll dip the tails into Chartreuse Spike It Dip-N-Glo Worm Dye (unscented).

Most days, I run 1/2-oz lead heads but 1/4-ouncers are nice when the water is really shallow. The Big Hammer Jig Heads work well with these (and other brands of swimbait tails). Normally, I’ll use white heads with white swimbaits but you can also go with chartreuse heads in conjunction with white tails.

JerkBaits

When stripers are spread out and you need to cover the water quickly — or you have a nice windy day that’s blowing bait against the points — jerkbaits are very effective.

Probably the most effective (and pricy) is the MegaBass Ito Vision 110. At roughly $25, these puppies aren’t cheap, but man do they work! I like the Elegy Bone, French Pearl and Sexy Shad color patterns for the Delta and rivers.

MegaBass Ito Vision 110

A step down but still deadly is the Luckycraft Pointer 110 in American Shad finish. Retailing from $12-13 you can buy a couple of these for every Vision 110.

Luckycraft Pointer 110

The issue with jerkbaits for stripers is they usually come with light wire bass hooks that quickly get destroyed by stripers. So, I replace all mine with either No. 2 or No. 4 KVD Triple Grips.

The trick here is find a hook that is stronger but won’t affect the action of the lure. I’d like to go with 3X or 4X strong models, but the neutral buoyancy of the lure would be compromised. The KVD hook seems to be a happy medium. They will still get beaten up by stripers eventually but they definitely last longer than the stock models do.

How To: Pink Worm & Diver for Steelhead

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Diver and worm rig for steelhead fishingBacktrolling plastic worms behind divers is a deadly steelhead technique — yet not many folks fish them this way.

Of course, the fact that steelhead like plastic worms is about as revolutionary these days as saying Jimi Hendrix was an amazing guitarist. Or that Jennifer Lawrence is hot. Not exactly big news, right? But, the use of plastic “garden hackle” is most often associated with float or drift fishing.

This time around, I’m going to (re)introduce you to an old classic that is a genuine steelhead smoker!

What makes the diver & worm rig so effective is you can put your plastic bait, with pinpoint accuracy, into runs that would be hard to reach otherwise. Also, the bait stays right down in the zone the whole time so the fish have a good chance to see it. At first, you may think that a worm traveling downstream, tail first, at a slow rate of speed, wouldn’t have much meal appeal to a steelhead, but it actually has a nice subtle action that the fish seem to really like.

Technique

Running the diver and worm show is a lot like pulling plugs. I’ll have the clients run them back about 40 to 60 feet behind the boat and then I’ll slowly back down a fishy-looking run. While some pluggers slowly sweep side-to-side as they backtroll, I like to keep the worms moving in a straight line down river. I’ll let the boat slip downstream at about half the speed of the current.

Rather than hand-holding them, it’s best if you put the rods into holders to keep you from reacting too quickly when you get a strike. Speaking of bites, there are three main styles you may get while fishing plastic in this fashion. The first is a peck-peck-peck style of grab, which can be a smolt, cutthroat or other small fish…BUT…I’ve had plenty of big fish take a worm that way too. So, don’t take any bites for granted!

The second (and more common) type of grab you’re likely to get goes like this: One solid thump…a pause…and then the rod doubles over. And then there’s the third (my personal favorite): the suicidal steelhead slam. Out of nowhere, the rod tip slams down hard and pumps wildly as a steelhead makes for the horizon.

The Rig

I like to run a threaded worm on a 4- to 5-foot leader made from 12-to 15-pound mono. Now, you can go with a three way swivel between the mainline and the leader, with a dropper line for your diver off the other eye — or run a sliding dropper rig. One reason to go with the 3-way instead of a sliding dropper is because worms can get snagged when you’re backtrolling them. If your diver’s on a slider, the worm can be snagged but the diver will keep working downstream and you may not notice it until the lure is somewhere way upstream of you. The downside to a fixed dropper is that you can sometimes get the diver caught up in the net — when this happens, the fish usually uses that leverage to break free.

In either case, I usually tie a 6- to 18-inch dropper for the diver (go longer in slower water and shorter when fishing the fast stuff) and finish it off with a duo lock plug snap.

Speaking of divers, I like the clear/black bill or flat black Brad’s Bait Divers.
catching steelhead with divers and bait

Worms

There are countless worm varieties out there and all of them will catch steelhead. My favorites are Mad River Manufacturing’s Steelhead Worms but the BnR Tackle Holey Worms are cool too. The amount of colors and sizes of worms out there is pretty mind boggling. To keep it simple, start with this basic rule of thumb: Smaller and darker worms tend to work best in low, clear water and larger, more poppy colors are best in big, off-color water. There are tons of exceptions to that concept, but it’s a good place to begin. One thing I will say is big, wild bucks will often crush a hot pink 6-inch worm in any water condition!

Hooks

Octopus style hooks work well with worms fished behind divers. The size varies, depending on the worm but I generally go with No. 2 to 2/0. I’ve also experimented quite a bit with light wire circle hooks with this method. They really hold fish — provided you can fight the temptation to set the hook when you git bit, A circle hook needs a little time to work its magic — when the rod tip is in the water and line is screaming off the reel, go ahead and pick up the rod. At that point, the fish should be solidly hooked and you can start cranking. Once these hooks hit paydirt, you’ll almost always have the fish hooked deep in the corner of the jaw. And another bonus is steelhead rarely swallow circle hooks, so it’s easy to release them.

I really got into there diver & worm thing heavily back in the late 1990’s. Here’s an old school pic of some of my dudes from 2009 with an early diver rig steelie.

Regardless of the hook style you use, run a small bead or sequin between the bait and the eye of the hook to keep it from getting sucked into the worm.

Drift Bobbers

When running the diver and pink worm rig, I like a drift bobber ahead of the worm to keep it up off the bottom. A simple round Corkie, Hard Fish Pill or Cheater will work fine, and when I need a little more movement, Wobble Glos can be the ticket. The best-ever bobber, however, is the Big Poly Stik Minnow, which looks kinda like a long, stretched out Spin-N-Glo. Stik Minnows fit the profile of the worm, yet give it some sweet action. They’re deadly — and, unfortunately, difficult to find these days.

Rods & Reels

Rods for this technique need to have a soft tip but plenty of power in the lower half. The flexibility in the tip allows the fish to take the bait without feeling much resistance and the bottom end punch will help you stop a rampaging steelhead that’s hell bent on going back to the sea. Conventional reels with solid drag systems are a must and you can fill them with mono or braid — that’s mostly a matter of personal preference.

How to tie the Egg Loop: POV Edition

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The Egg Loop is an essential knot for steelhead and salmon fishing but takes a bit of practice to learn. One of the reasons it’s hard to learn is every video I have found shows it from the reverse perspective — as if you are watching somebody tie it in person. In this vid, we shot from that angle but also from the first person view — so you can see how it looks as if you were tying it yourself!