It took awhile to catch on up north, but southern anglers in the Chesapeake Bay area were onto the striped bass technique of Mojo balling, (a derivative of Parachute jigging), years before the madness trickled up into the New Jersey and New York waters.

The tactic is pretty simple and doesn’t really require too much technical wisdom. A Mojo rig starts with a heavy duty three way swivel. On one ring is tied a 24-inch piece of 60 to 80-pound monofilament leader. To the leader is a Mojo ball jig, a colored piece of lead with a hook, usually 12 to 48 ounces, with a large 12-inch rubber swim shad attached on the hook. On the other ring, a 48-inch piece of 60 to 80-pound mono leader is tied to which a trailer lure is clipped, usually a lighter 4 to 12-ounce weight or unweighted rubber shad again.

Shad colors are generally white or chartreuse. Magictail bucktails make all the perfect shapes and sizes. The theory is that the weight of the Mojo ball drags down in the water column around the bottom, while the trailing teaser kind of flutters above it. Striped bass key in on the movement of the rubber shads and strike with reckless abandon. You simply troll around at a 2.5 to 3 knot pace until you find the fish.

Mojo ball rigs are easy to deploy as you can troll the rig on a tight, compact capacity conventional reel that can hold a lot of 65 to 80-pound Power Pro braided line, such as an Avet LX and match with a heavy action conventional rod such as an Okuma MK-C-601XH-HD. Mojo ball rigs are really easy to manage and you can even run three in the spread effectively as they don’t cheat and swing over the spread like Stretch plugs are prone to do when you make a turn and you don’t need a mile of line out as when bunker spooning. Mostly the lures are nearly vertical when trolled so you can effectively monitor the lures and turn the boat with ease.

Drop some Mojos the next time you are out striper fishing, you’ll be pleased with the results.